‘The Covenant’ trailer promises an agonizing Afghan translator story

The trailer for Guy Ritchie’s “The Covenant” dropped today — and it’s a doozy.

The film, set in Afghanistan, centers on an Army Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or JTAC, named Sgt. John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal). While deployed, Kinley is introduced to an interpreter named Ahmed (Dal Salim), who says he enlisted because he needs the money. It’s later revealed, however, that Ahmed’s motive is more personal: His son was killed by Taliban forces.

After an ambush, Ahmed takes extraordinary steps to save Kinley’s life. The short teaser shows Ahmed dragging the concussed and bleeding soldier over endless swaths of barren terrain under the desert sun.

Sometime after the deployment, Kinley, who struggles to remember the events of the attack but clearly recalls the rescue, learns that Ahmed and his family were not granted the opportunity to settle in America as they had been promised.

The film appears to waver between past and present, with Kinley struggling with the choice of whether to return the favor and save Ahmed’s life as the interpreter had done for him.

“If it wasn’t enough for him to carry me across those mountains, now he’s hiding in a hole somewhere,” Kinley says in the trailer. “I should be in that hole.”

The plot of the movie is sure to hit close to home for veterans of the recently-ended War in Afghanistan. After U.S. troops pulled out in August 2021, tens of thousands of Afghan allies and their families were left in the lurch, awaiting Special Immigrant Visas, as the Taliban took control of the country. A portion of those left behind were interpreters for the U.S. military.

“The Covenant” hits theaters in April.