siobhan smith

How refreshing to watch a film which was actually great from start to finish. Guy Richie’s, The Covenant had our eyes glued and ears pinned for the full two hours. I wasn’t thrilled to be watching another American war movie to be honest, it was my partner who picked it, but I was grateful immediately. Who knows how similar to real life experiences this might have been but it really had you thinking of what it must be like to live the lives of all involved in that war and all wars past and present. I felt emotional throughout for this reason, and that’s one of the reason’s I liked it so much. We were physically tense for a lot of it. A movie which makes you feel something is a movie which has accomplished the mission from my point of view. The acting was superb, couldn’t fault it. The ambience of each scene came across the screen and into our house well. The sound and cinematography, although I am not an expert on these things - it felt good. The scenery was somewhat repetitive, but then I imagine much of the Afghan desert is like that. One of my only gripes would be that occasionally there was some dialog which was hard to decipher but this did not effect our overall understanding of the situation. Perhaps it was colloquialism’s or military talk we didn’t quite get. Finally, as with most American movies, I did feel that it was a little unrealistic at points, but again I have not experienced anything like what was being depicted so maybe it was completely plausible. Regardless, the story had us in the palm of its hand. I will be watching out for more Jake Gyllenhaal, more Guy Ritchie and more Dar Salim.