Guy Ritchie's The Covenant

Gyllenhaal is good as the intense American sergeant...

[Gyllenhaal 's] energy is perfect for the relatively sober-minded The Covenant — and allows space for Dar Salim to shine, in a more substantial lead than the majority of his Hollywood roles have afforded him so far.

Though the movie is fictional, the uncertain fate of thousands of real Afghan interpreters after the hurried 2021 US withdrawal gives it genuine heft.

This feels like a breath of fresh air [for Guy Ritchie]. He is really reinvigorated by paring it down.

This gripping look at war gets under your skin.

The Covenant doesn’t arouse the stirrings of fervor that many war movies tap into but neither is it a nihilistic descent into the inhumanity of battle.

...a stirring action picture that grows more and more absorbing as it unfolds...

A riveting war story that reveals the bonds that build between soldiers and interpreters

In telling a specific story of wartime camaraderie, the film offers good fodder for discussions of grace, guilt, and the gospel.

It is a tight drama that looks at the war in Afghanistan in 2018 and its aftermath that works on multiple levels and is so finely written that it flows from beginning to end.