Jake Gyllenhaal & Guy Ritchie Talk ‘The Covenant’ And The “Begrudging” Friendship At Its Heart [The Playlist Podcast]

Decades after he first broke out with “Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels,” film fans probably think they know what a Guy Ritchie film is going to look and feel like. Well, when you bring Jake Gyllenhaal into the equation, Ritchie throws all of those preconceived notions out of the window, and you end up with “The Covenant,” a no-nonsense war film about a life-altering debt and the lengths someone will go to shed a curse, of sorts. And in this episode of The Playlist Podcast, Jake Gyllenhaal and Guy Ritchie discuss their new war film and the interesting relationship that forms the heart of the story.

Guy Ritchie’s “The Covenant” stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a highly decorated soldier, Sergeant John Kinley, who finds himself trying to fight for his life alongside his interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim). Through the struggle to survive, the two form an unlikely bond. But when Ahmed finds himself held captive, Kinley has to risk it all to pay back this enormous debt and save his war partner. It’s a Guy Ritchie film that sheds a lot of the filmmaker’s hallmarks and really is a lean, sometimes brutal story about a life-altering bond between two people. 

In our discussion with Gyllenhaal and Ritchie, the director talked about tackling a war film for the first time and what drew him to “The Covenant,” in particular, among many other various topics.

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