Guy Ritchie’s gripping war thriller The Covenant, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Jason Wong, Bobby Schofield, and Antony Starr, portrays the courageous story of an Afghan interpreter who risks his life to help an injured US soldier.

The film was shot in Alicante, Spain, in 2022, and made terrible headlines before its release when actor Antony Starr was arrested for violence during a night out during the production. Starr earned a $5,400 fine and a 12-month suspended prison sentence.

The Covenant investigates the strong kinship between the brothers in arms who fought against the Taliban rule.

The film was released in UK cinemas in April and will be available on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, June 2nd. This is everything you need to know about The Covenant and the conflict that inspired it:

Is The Covenant Based On A True Story?

Despite being based on genuine events, The Covenant is not a true story, but rather the cumulative experiences of hundreds of translators and troops throughout the Afghan war.

While performing promotional work for The Covenant, Ritchie noted that while watching documentaries about Afghanistan, he was intrigued by the relationships formed between the interpreters and their American military colleagues, which inspired him to convey their narrative (via YouTube).

After assisting American soldiers in Afghanistan, interpreters were promised visas, and when the US military withdrew in 2021 after decades of conflict, many were left behind (and still are).

Guy Ritchie’s films use action as a language to transmit a story that goes beyond conversation, and a war narrative, especially one focused on the skill of interpreting a look or a micro expression, provides the ideal structure for revealing the actual essence of everyone who experiences it.

Though not based on a factual story, The Covenant illustrates the unbreakable relationships that develop between individuals from quite diverse backgrounds. To comprehend the scope of the struggle, one must look through the eyes of those who made the ultimate sacrifice but often go unnoticed.

What Is The Covenant About?

The story takes place during the Afghan conflict. Given how long, divisive, and brutal several portions of this now-famous conflict were, a plethora of films have been made about nearly every facet of it. With so many spectacular, distressing, and tragic occurrences occurring over the course of the war’s 20-year duration, filmmakers had practically endless angles from which to take inspiration.

The Covenant chose to examine one that may not be at the top of many people’s lists when they think of the war but is extremely important to the brave people who lived (and killed) through the kinds of situations featured in the video.

Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) selects an Afghan villager called Ahmed to be his interpreter in The Covenant. Dar Salim, an Iraqi-born Danish actor, played Ahmed, and he was outstanding in the role, adding amazing depth and authenticity to a role that deserved it.

Despite the well-documented, tense interaction between American forces and locals during the conflict, many Afghans became unsung heroes by bravely risking their own lives to assist US troops. The bond between Sergeant Kinley and Ahmed in the film allowed for a particularly nuanced examination of this element of the war.

Read More: Is Fences Based on a True Story?

The two find themselves in some extremely unpleasant and maybe life-threatening situations. However, contrary to Kinley’s initial doubts about Ahmed’s ability, Ahmed goes above and above his call, boldly remaining by his partner throughout these situations and even saving Kinley’s life.