Spoiler Warning: Guy Ritchie's The CovenantWith the world still reeling from the ongoing effects of the war in Ukraine, and so many other devastating conflicts around the world still in recent memory, war films currently seem to have more poignancy than ever before. The highly acclaimed director and writer Guy Ritchie recently threw his filmmaking hat into this arena with his war drama, Guy Ricthie's The Covenant. For many reasons, the film is a superb one that captures many of the grittier and humanistic sides of war than most films in the genre have the depth to properly explore.

Despite a poor showing at the box office, the film has been well received by critics with its rating currently holding firm at an 83% audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes. This isn't unsurprising for a Guy Ritchie film since the director has gained a stellar reputation for the brilliance of his previous films. Given the subject of The Covenant, and the fearless way that it tackled some very complex material, the film also has many people wondering if it is based on a true story. The short answer is no, but there's a lot more subtlety for why it's a question that pops up so often once people see the film.

What Is The Covenant About?

Dar Salim in The Covenant
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

The film takes place during the war in Afghanistan. Given how long, contentious, and horrific many aspects of this now-famous war were, there's been a ton of films made about virtually every aspect of it. With so many dramatic, harrowing, and tragic events during the war's 20-year period, there were virtually limitless angles from it for filmmakers to draw inspiration from. The Covenant chose to look at one that may not necessarily be top of many people's list when they think of the war, but one which is deeply significant for the courageous people who actually lived (and died) through the kinds of experiences depicted in the film.

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The Covenant follows Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) as he recruits an Afghan local named Ahmed to be his interpreter. Ahmed was played by the Iraqi-born Danish actor, Dar Salim, who was brilliant in the film, bringing some wonderful depth and sincerity to a role that demanded it. Despite the well-documented, uneasy relationship between American troops and locals during the war, many Afghans became unsung heroes as they courageously risked their own lives to assist US soldiers. The relationship that Sergeant Kinley and Ahmed share in the film made for an especially nuanced exploration of this aspect of the war.

The pair find themselves in some gravely distressing and life-threatening situations. However, far from Kinley's initial skepticism over whether Ahmed would be up to the task, Ahmed goes far beyond his calling, fearlessly sticking with his partner throughout these incidents, and even saving Kinley's life.

How The Covenant Adds Realism to a Fictional Story

Gyllenhaal in The Covenant
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

It is true that The Covenant is not based on a true story. However, the film depicts finely gradated aspects of the war through the relationship between a soldier and his interpreter in a way that is grounded in reality. To this end, there have been many documented stories about real-life soldiers and the bonds they experienced with their translators. The timing of The Covenant was made more poignant by the USA's withdrawal from the region.

Many true accounts from soldiers tell the heart-wrenching stories of how many formed amazing and unique bonds with their interpreters — allies who often made the difference between them approaching life-threatening situations with or without added foresight into what they were facing. Real-life soldiers have publicly noted that their largest concern about the withdrawal from Afghanistan was how many translators had to be left behind, now exposed and facing possibly fatal recriminations from the Taliban for helping US soldiers. One such story came from Timothy Griffin, who has real-life experience from his time during a tour of Afghanistan.

"Griffin did a tour in Afghanistan under an Obama-era program where he learned Pashto to help the Americans better communicate with Afghans. He was stationed out of Fort Campbell, an Army base outside of Nashville, Tenn. He says he hasn't been sleeping so that he can bridge the time difference with the translators he worked with during his tour... He says his heartbreak about what is happening in Afghanistan is eclipsed by worry for those translators."

The Brilliance of Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Among other notable aspects of the film, one of The Covenant's best features was its ability to draw on so many thought-provoking angles and real-life stories to create a fictional account of this bond in a humanistic manner that captured it so well. While Guy Ritchie is well-known for making gritty gangster films that utilize stylized violence and entertaining dialogues, his true brilliance with The Covenant was how much restraint he showed.

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The film delicately captures the complex inter-plays between the courageous actions of interpreters who took on these roles. Though many may have preferred to stay out of the conflict, others, like Ahmed in the film, were forced to endanger themselves just to survive financially. On the other hand, despite an often fractious relationship between locals and US troops, their common enemy, the Taliban, often drew soldiers and locals into uneasy alliances that ended up forging astounding, life-long bonds between them.

Real or Not, The Covenant Is a Significant Film

Salim and Gyllenhaal in The Covenant
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Make no mistake, The Covenant has plenty of action that was portrayed exceptionally by Ritchie as he uncomfortably places the viewer into the harrowing nature of the war. However, the film's greatest accomplishments lie in how astutely it brought a fictional story to bear on a very real part of the war that often gets overlooked. In doing so, the film also reminds us just what the cost of war can be from a humanitarian point of view.

With more than 20 active conflicts currently happening around the world at this very moment, the sheer number of them can have an almost numbing effect on how much people actually care anymore. However, films like The Covenant relate the fact that the devastating consequences of these wars go far beyond the statistics that inform the pages of history books when they end. As numb as the world may have become to human beings' propensity for mass conflicts, at the heart of everyone, such films remind us that there are actually real people whose lives are shattered and upended by them every day.