Guy Ritchie’s New Film The Covenant Has a Trailer

Movies

Guy Ritchie is plunging into the real-world grittiness of the war in Afghanistan. MGM has released a trailer for The Covenant, a military action-thriller from the director of Snatch and Sherlock Holmes. The Covenant stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a United States military officer who goes behind enemy lines to rescue the Afghan interpreter who once saved him. Dar Salam, Emily Beecham, Antony Starr (Homelander!), and Alexander Ludwig also star in the film. Ritchie co-wrote the script for The Covenant with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, the three of whom also wrote Ritchie’s last two directorial efforts, The Gentlemen and Wrath of Man – both of which I liked – and Ritchie’s upcoming Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. The Covenant will be released in theaters on April 21, 2023, and you can see the trailer below:

Guy Ritchie films vary in quality for me, but this looks great. I hadn’t heard a word about The Covenant till today when the trailer showed up on YouTube. I’m glad a movie is tackling the issue of America abandoning its allies in Afghanistan because the circumstances surrounding our withdrawal were shameful and deserve to be highlighted at least as much as privilege-checking or whatever. Making it a personal story is the right way to go, too; that will (or should) keep it from getting heavy-handed and let the characters and their journeys do the work. Even though it’s about something that happened less than two years ago, the basics of the plot are classic cinema, with an honor-bound hero heading into a maelstrom of danger to save a friend when the rest of the world turns its back on him. The Covenant has the makings of a pleasant surprise, and it’s now on my list.