Jake Gyllenhaal Is Guy Ritchie's Latest Superhero In "The Covenant"
#223: "The Covenant," "Ghosted," "Interview With A Vampire," "Jerry Maguire"
Edition 223:
Hey movie lovers!
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This week: A new Guy Ritchie less than two months after the last one? Plus, the new Apple movie that a friend saved me from having to sit through, and two Tom Cruise movie suggestions since he’s apparently still the biggest movie star in the world. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” we get our first look at season six of “Black Mirror,” and it gets me as excited as any movie coming out this year.
The Covenant
It’s only been a month and a half since the last Guy Ritchie-directed movie hit theaters, but a viewer would hardly recognize that the filmmaker behind the singular Operation Fortune, a classic Ritchie greatest hits album of the work he’d done in cockney gangster movies like The Gentlemen, RocknRolla, and Snatch, as the one who made this story about a U.S. soldier and his interpreter in Afghanistan.
Ritchie is known for his densely plotted and fast-talking capers, but this movie puts its head down and plods forward in a straight line from start to finish. There’s basically only one motivation throughout: stay alive. Our protagonist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, gets shot but has his life heroically saved by a local Afghan man whose family is trying to escape the Taliban. When the government refuses to help, Gyllenhaal decides to return to Afghanistan alone and retrieve the man.
The connective tissue tying this to Richie’s catalogue is his fascination with both the construction and destruction of the macho man myth. Ritchie characters are basically superheroes, and you’d be amazed just how much of this movie is governed by an overriding philosophy of ‘stormtrooopers (in this case Taliban) can’t shoot straight.’
In fact, Ritchie’s British-ness is just about the only thing saving this movie from reaching the levels of out-and-out USA propaganda seen in something like Lone Survivor, Clear and Present Danger or American Sniper, three films with which it has a lot in common.
If you’re a fan of these no-nonsense adventure movies, you’re going to really enjoy this one, because the quality of filmmaking and authority of storytelling are obvious throughout. While much of the movie goes by without any talking, he manages to slip in some creative dialogue when he can. Unfortunately, there’s not a ton to offer those who wouldn’t normally turn out for basic adventure fare, because the movie is just so stripped down to its studs. No fluff, no B-plots, no side characters of any substance.
That leaves the weight of the movie squarely on the capable shoulders of newcomer Dar Salim, and of course Gyllenhaal. In addition to being the greatest guest in the history of “Hot Ones,” I’m not sure Gyllenhaal gets enough credit for being such a recognizable star who nonetheless is a chameleon when it comes to the parts that he chooses to play.
Yes, several movie stars through the years have grown out their beard, thrown on a baseball hat and sunglasses and gotten behind the wheel of a pickup truck to play generic military veteran X, but I’m not sure any have reached the levels of quiet intensity that Gyllenhaal bring in the second half of this movie. A lot of the movie is stunt work and action scenes, but every time the movie slows down and the camera zooms in, you won’t be able to take your eyes off his performance.
Back in the glory days of movie theaters, they’d call something like this a “programmer,” the type of movie that people weren’t rushing out to see but if they were dropping in hoping to see something (believe it or not, people used to do that), they wouldn’t be disappointed.
Ritchie is still one of my “season ticket” directors, and in this era where Quentin Tarantino is telling anyone who will listen that he’s only making 10 movies and directors think each project is so precious, I respect filmmakers like Ritchie or Steven Soderbergh who are willing to try stuff out. This experiment worked on its own accord, and I’m curious to see in the future if it’s a stepping stone toward a more major work. I’ll be there to see it either way.
Something New
Ghosted (AppleTV+): My only exposure to this Chris Evans-Ana De Armas action rom-com has been the cringey press tour and the clips going around online pointing out that it looks like the two stars were never in the same room together while filming scenes (quite convincing evidence, I might add). I was dreading wasting my time on what seemed like an awful movie. Luckily, I can call upon our newsletter’s official Bad Movie Correspondent, Justin Birnbaum, to fill in for me, because he absolutely loves trash movies like this. Here’s what he says:
“Oh Ana, my sweet Ana, why must you waste your prodigious talent on a film like this? That’s a thought that went through my head over and over again as I screened Apple TV+’s Ghosted this week. Yes, the premise is fun. Chris Evans plays a hopeless romantic who gets ghosted after a first date with Ana De Armas, then plans a grand gesture to surprise her in Europe. But it turns out, surprise!, she’s a superspy, and pulls him into a vicious battle for a dangerous biological superweapon. Matt forbids spoilers, so I won’t go any further, and I don’t need to, because I know you were hooked the minute I said “biological superweapon.”
Ghosted isn’t your typical Apple movie, one that you can sink your teeth into. It strikes me as something closer to a big budget Netflix film like Red Notice, where they attach a star-studded cast to a B- script and market the hell out of it. There are a few moments in the film that are so meta (another Netflix staple), that you could be made to believe the film is a lark on the genre. But that’s giving too much credit to what feels more like Apple throwing piles of cash from their Scrooge McDuck stockpile at a poorly written popcorn movie. Yet two hours later, I find myself wanting more. (Sign me up for the sequel!) And I guess I’m not the only one, as reports suggest that Ghosted is the most watched premiere ever for Apple.
I buy Evans as the funny guy (and have ever since Not Another Teen Movie), but it’s hard to see him as a helpless buffoon after a decade as Captain America. Can De Armas act? I’m still hopeful that one day she’ll fall in love with me, so I won’t answer that question. I liked her in Knives Out and War Dogs, but never saw Blonde. My one compliment to her on this film: she went through a lot of stunt training and it shows. Maybe there’s a future for her as an action star. Or as my soulmate.”
Something Old
Interview With A Vampire (1994, Max): It’s been nearly 30 years, and according to a new survey, two of the top four biggest box office draws in the world are still Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Did you know, once upon a time they co-starred in a movie as….vampires, complete with utterly ridiculous wigs and accents? Perhaps even they want us to forget it.
With the aide of hindsight, it’s clear to see now the movie is Twilight before Twilight, absurd yet self-serious and melodramatic to the point of parody (done so gloriously, twice, by What We Do In The Shadows). The reason why it was such a big hit ($200 million globally, almost half a billion in today’s dollars) can only be the star power of its cast, which also includes Christian Slater, Thandiwe Newton, Antonio Banderas, and an 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst.
Something to Stream
Jerry Maguire (Netflix): I promise this will be the last Tom Cruise movie I recommend or watch for a while — I realize I’ve been on a bit of a streak lately —but in honor of the NFL Draft this week I am resurfacing the best movie ever on the event (sorry to Kevin Costner’s Draft Day). And, the truth is, I’ll never get sick of recommending movies directed by Cameron Crowe, who has my heart forever for making Almost Famous.
This movie has the rare distinction of being far more iconic than it is watched. A quick poll of my friends showed most hadn’t seen the movie, but everyone had heard of the lines “show me the money!” and “you had me at hello.”
Don’t be discouraged if you’re not a sports fan. This isn’t really a sports movie so much as it is a romantic comedy between Cruise and Renée Zellweger (or between Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr., depending on how you look at it). Sandwiched between those famous quotes is a story about a sports agent exercising the very mid-90s philosophy of ‘stick it to the man,’ leaving his established agency to create his own with one client and one employee (who he’s also trying to sleep with). Even more than it is good, it’s a movie that’s extremely lovable. That’s good enough for me!
Trailer Watch: Black Mirror Season 6
Netflix’s anthology nightmare show about the future of technology has produced some of the most inventive and audacious filmmaking in recent years, across any medium. I’d put its best episodes (“San Junipero,” “Playtest,” and “Nosedive” off the top of my head) against any movies over the same span. The trailer for the new season shows off plenty of recognizable faces — Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz, Annie Murphy, and more — and the use of the “I Don’t Want To Set The World Of Fire” song best known from the Fallout 3 trailer was an absolute cheat code. Can’t wait for this new batch in June.