Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is a 2023 American action-war film that tells a moving story of "trust-respect-obligation and sacrifice" between Ahmed, an Afghan interpreter, and John Kinley, a US Army special operations sergeant in the military campaign against the Taliban.
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In 2018, in the midst of the War in Afghanistan, John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his unit are ambushed by the Taliban in Lashkargah, that left his Afghan interpreter killed. Among serveral introduced candidates, John chooses Ahmed Abdullah (Dar Salim) as the replacement, even though Ahmed seems to be a sloppy interpreter, and said he pursued the job only for the sake of money.
Later John learns that Ahmed was formerly affiliated with the Taliban, but defected when they murdered his son. In one of their operations, Ahmed saves John Kinley's unit from a Taliban ambush.
During a raid about 100 klicks (62 miles) from Bagram Air Base, Kinley's unit is ambushed again by Taliban reinforcements, resulting in everyone got killed except John and Ahmed.
The two manage to escape, trying to get back to the airbase by walking through the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Discovered and attacked by the rebels, John is badly wounded, captured and beaten unconscious. Ahmed manages to eliminate the Taliban fighters to save John and is determined to bring him back to the airbase in an arduous, dangerous journey that lasts many days.
Three weeks later, John is repatriated to his hometown of Santa Clarita, California. He has absolutely no idea how he was saved since he was unconscious during the entire process, but understands Ahmed's role in it.
When he learns that Ahmed and his family are targeted by the Taliban after the story of John's rescue goes viral locally, thinking that he has a huge debt to pay in life, John tries every network and channel to ask for visa for Ahmed, and personally returns to Afghanistan to search for Ahmed.
John pays a large sum of money to Parker (Antony Starr), a private military contractor, to assist in the search for Ahmed. When John and Ahmed's family are about to reach the extraction point, they are followed and attacked by the Taliban. When John loses all his hope, a US Army AC-130 fighter jet appears in the sky to attack the enemies. Parker wisely arranges this in advance.
The final screen text reveals that after the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan, more than 300 Afghan interpreters with links to the US military have been killed by the group, and thousands more are still in hiding.
Following its theatrical release, Guy Ritchie's The Covenant are also released digitally in a Blu-rays and DVDs, and aired on the Amazon Prime Video platform.
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Jake Gyllenhaal ... Master Sgt. John Kinley
Dar Salim ... Ahmed
Sean Sagar ... Charlie 'Jizzy' Crow
Jason Wong ... Joshua 'JJ' Jung
Rhys Yates ... Tom 'Tom Cat' Hancock
Christian Ochoa Lavernia ... Eduardo 'Chow Chow' Lopez
Bobby Schofield ... Steve Kersher
Emily Beecham ... Caroline Kinley
Jonny Lee Miller ... Col. Vokes
Alexander Ludwig ... Sgt. Declan O'Brady
Reza Diako ... Haadee
James Nelson-Joyce ... Jack 'Jack Jack' Jackson
Antony Starr ... Eddie Parker
Fariba Sheikhan ... Basira
