InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 16

FILM REVIEWS
TRENQUE LAUQUEN
Laura Citarella
“Trenque Lauquen, Argentinean director Laura Citarella’s third
feature, shares with that film not just its production outfit El
Pampero Cine, but also two of the film’s leads, Laura Paredes
and Elisa Carricajo. (Llinás also has a producer credit.) Granted,
four hours is a ways off from fourteen, and instead of Llinás’
intentionally incomplete stories, Trenque Lauquen comprises
elliptical fragments which do, finally, offer some semblance of
unity. But it is characteristic of Citarella’s approach that many
of the film’s chapters are told from the perspectives of different
characters and vary wildly in tone. ” — LAWRENCE GARCIA
[Published as part of InRO’s NYFF 2022 coverage.]
DIRECTOR: Laura Citarella; CAST: Laura Paredes, Ezequiel
Pierri, Rafael Spregelburd; DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild; IN
THEATERS: April 21; RUNTIME: 4 hr. 20 min.
GUY RITCHIE’S THE COVENANT
Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant notably marks the first feature that
has included the eponymous filmmaker’s name in the title itself,
a rather curious development as the film is the least Guy
Ritchie-esque movie in his entire filmography. Indeed, the final
product plays more like the director’s attempt at aping the style
of Peter Berg, a slab of right-wing militaristic propaganda that
manages the miracle of making Lone Survivor look subtle in
comparison. Perhaps an even more stunning discovery is that
The Covenant is entirely a work of fiction, its far-flung story of
the brotherhood’s bonds forged in the hells of combat so
relentlessly cliched that it seemed all but a lock for
based-on-a-true-story status. That makes the script, courtesy of
Ritchie and co-writers Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson, nearly
impossible to forgive in both its mind-numbing predictability and
— to be quite frank — outright stupidity.
Jake Gyllenhaal, in pure paycheck mode, stars as John Kinley, a
Sergeant Major of the American Army who, in the year 2018, is
stationed in Afghanistan, where he and the various members of
his troop are hunting down Taliban-deployed IEDs. The various
soldiers under Kinley’s command are introduced with on-screen
text, and in such quick succession that it is all but impossible to
make heads-or-tails of who is who. Not that Ritchie is remotely
interested in these men, as most aren’t even afforded a single
character trait — although, in fairness, one of them does like to
eat and talk about food. Entering this tight-knit group is Ahmed
(Dar Salim), a no-nonsense Afghani interpreter with whom Kinley
forms an eventual bond because they are both stubborn and,
damn it, they have to respect that in one another. But a raid on
an IED manufacturing plant soon leaves the entire troop dead,
save for Kinley and Ahmed, who must travel by foot over
treacherous terrain to reach base as they are relentlessly hunted
by the Taliban.
It’s at the halfway point in the film that Kinley becomes injured to
the point of catatonia, with Ahmed dragging — and, with the
eventual aid of a wagon, wheeling — Kinley’s lifeless body over 50
miles to safety, an impossible feat that the film devotes less than
fifteen minutes to detailing, opting for a series of montages (set
to a bombastic and ultimately oppressive score courtesy of
Christopher Benstead) that robs the movie of anything
resembling tension while also completely neutering Ahmed’s
Herculean task. Cut ahead seven weeks, and Kinley discovers
from the safety of his home in California that Ahmed is #1 Most
Wanted on the Taliban’s kill list, a fact that has forced the
interpreter, along with his wife and newborn baby, into hiding.
The remainder of The Covenant focuses on Kinley’s attempts to
locate Ahmed and his family and secure their safe passage to
America, with Sergeant Major ultimately traveling to Afghanistan
once more in the name of brotherhood, because, of course.
The film’s first hour is certainly no great shakes, but it feels like a
downright masterpiece in comparison to the dire second half,
which mostly consists of Gyllenhaal delivering a lot of
long-winded monologues about the importance of paying back
debts while doing his best to look as tough as possible, which
amounts to a dedicated monotone delivery and a catalog of
dead-eyed stares. Much like Ritchie’s last feature,
Mission:Impossible-wannabe Operation Fortune, The Covenant is
completely devoid of any of the stylistic tics that once marked
the director’s work. Some might view this as a sign of
maturation, but such an argument is DOA when the alternative is
just some shaky cam and a palette of browns and grays that
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