“Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” Gets Powerful First Look

While Guy Ritchie is best known for his tongue-in-cheek action comedies, his next film is completely serious. The Covenant (which includes the director's name, possibly to differentiate it from the 2006 horror movie of the same name) features a non-winking Jake Gyllenhaal as Sgt. John Kinley. While serving in Afghanistan, his unit is ambushed. But Kinley survives thanks to his interpreter Ahmed (Dal Salim). Kinley returns home but Ahmed is left high-and-dry by the U.S. military, with a bounty on his head from the Taliban. Determined to repay his debt, Kinley returns to the war zone as a one-man search-and-rescue team.

In this first look at the film, co-writer and director Guy Ritchie calls the story "an inspiring concept of what one person's prepared to do for another when push comes to shove." And while Gyllenhaal promises exciting action, he claims the film will stick with audiences because "at the heart of it is a real relationship."

Check out the first look below.

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant opens in theaters on April 21.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.