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Still SICK; now watching The Covenant
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Date: July 9th, 2023 2:00 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Or to be more precise, "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant." I'm exactly 30 minutes in and so far it's very good. So far it's about this special operator in Afghanistan who appears to lead an operator detachment alpha team. It's not clear because most of the interaction is between the sergeant in command and his new interpreter, and the other operators mostly just hang out in the background and take orders. The new interpreter is clearly a wise and trustworthy dood. You get to see him at home with his pregnant wife talking about Special Immigrant Visas, so his motives are plain as day. At the same time he has to gain the trust of these Americans who are accustomed to having their interpreters betray them. So this heroic interpreter has to do a very delicate dance every time he interacts with the locals. He already went rogue on one occasion but it was ok because he spotted an ambush and saved the Americans.
Already the movie is setting you up for tragedy though. Early on we learn that one of the Afghan informants tried to to set up the Americans after the Taliban kidnapped his family. Now we've seen this interpretor's pregnant wife and it's pretty clear where this is going. The heavy use of cellos in the background music keeps the tension high.
One gripe : the interpreter barely seems "Afghan." He has almost no accent and he acts like he grew up in America. He is a tough dood, not a meek little guy in a flak vest. May as well have cast Vin Diesel to play him. |
Date: July 9th, 2023 2:09 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy One question that occurs to me is why the interpreter's pregnant wife isn't already under US protection. She just lives in a hut back in the village. This interpreter seems like the kind of dood who would be pushy about that. But also, would it really put the Americans out to give her room in the green zone? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#46527945) |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 2:34 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Ok, so action scenes are well filmed and timed. But it's also a little bit video-gamey. People either die or they're fine. No one is just wounded. Even a freshly tortured Afghan is already dead by the time they find him. Like he breathes his last breath just as the Americans enter the room. Every gunshot is also fatal so far.
Also the Americans don't seem to fight very well, with the exception of the sergeant, who never misses a shot. This is a UK production so perhaps the filmmakers felt no incentive to portray Americans heroically, but these are well trained doods so they should have an edge. In this case they were outnumbered, but still, they aren't great about using cover and I'm not seeing any sort of squad tactics. The Apaches are conveniently FIFTEEN MINUTES away at the moment they're needed. Not sure how realistic that is. Seems like they should have sortied the apaches earlier given the intel they had. I wonder why that wasn't the JTAC's first order of business. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 2:53 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Update: not all gunshots are fatal. In fact there's an extended sequence where it takes at least two shots to kill anyone. Quite a change from earlier. The story is also morphing into Pocahontas or something. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#46528077) |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 3:01 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Apparently in Afghanistan in 2018 it was customary for village roads to be on fire. We're talking big fires, lots of smoke. No living people in the vicinity. Also when traversing the countryside and avoiding roads to evade pursuers, and having a huge bounty on your head, it's still ok (perhaps obligatory) to yell at the top of your lungs when exerting even minimal effort. Afghanistan carts also use wooden wheels, like carriages from the 19th century. You'd think they would scavenge some pneumatic tires, or least use aluminum instead of wooden wheels. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#46528102) |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 3:20 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy There's a step descent into alcoholism that's well filmed. Within 30 days a guy goes from NODRINK to scotch. The English film producers got this part right. HOWEVER the scene is rather drawn out and could be 75% shorter. There's some expository dialogue between a husband and wife that should have been cut altogether. Also, the husband seems miraculously sober during the scene. To the extent he carries bottled up rage, his wife doesn't see any of it. If the wife really needed persuading she should have just visited the guy at work.
I'm taking a break for a bit because I feel like shit. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 4:13 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Ok so this movie was definitely made with in coordination with UK intelligence, because it gives a VERY dishonest portrayal of how certain things went down in Afghanistan. Clearly they are bitter about not getting their guys out and wanted to make audiences think the US military fucked that up, like they were responsible for that somehow.
First of all, the movie never expressly tells us who any of the troops work for, but it's strongly implied that they are not under CIA command or doing jack shit for the CIA. The filmmakers would have you believe this ODA is active in Afghanistan in 2018 but that the chain of command runs strictly through the Pentagon.
This is confirmed when the Army dood tries to get a visa for his interpreter. They clearly show he's talking to USCIS (they zoom in on his phone screen while he's on the call and it literally says "USCIS."
This is totally at odds with reality. In reality, a military service member who only worked in that capacity, trying to extract an interpreter who worked only for the military, would be going through DoD channels. He would not be calling USCIS and getting put on hold for 90 minutes, or treated like he's in queue with all the Guatemalans jumping the border. If anyone had to sit on hold it would be Shaneequa, the administrative assistant at the office at the Pentagon that handles that stuff. Moreover that office would be responsive to the Army dood. It would never put him on hold for 90 minutes. Conversely, if he worked for CIA, getting the visa would not be an issue. Getting the dood extracted would be an issue, but not the visa. Among other things they would have gotten biometric data on this dood at Bagram, they wouldn't need the Army dood to spell his name or have him sign some forms
CIA and western intelligence agencies would have to talk to State Department/USCIS. They may well have had difficulty getting some of their guys out. But you can't make a movie like this about western intelligence agents in Afghanistan, because there's no way to make them look sympathetic or heroic. Furthermore these same intelligence agencies were MAD AS FUCK that the US military didn't help them exfiltrate their doods in 2021, and they would still be mad enough to make enough to make a movie like this in 2023.
So this is a backhanded attempt to rewrite history. That's why they are so ambiguous about who any of these people work for or what they are (or were) even doing in Afghanistan. This isn't like 13 Hours where you get precise biographic details on each character, and the characters then behave exactly like you would expect based on what you know. This movie constantly hides the ball, and falsely portrays the US military as unsupportive of its Afghan allies. That's probably why comments are disabled on all the YouTube clips. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 4:39 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Reality: former SAS dooder tried to move a bunch of single women out of Afghanistan. No husbands or children. No interpreters. Single women. This story got almost no coverage and lot of the original coverage has been wiped from the internet. This is all I can find now:
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/british-soldier-mission-taliban-arrest-b1913200.html
Funny how they are claiming it's 400 people now. Originally it was reported that he had only 40 people with him, all single women, but now I guess it's 400. Am I to believe there are Afghan border hotels that can accommodate 400 people like it's nbd?
Anyway, regardless of the number, Guy Ritchie couldn't make a movie about that unless it was some Schindler's List situation where a guy really was trying to exfiltrate 400 Afghan badasses |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 5:40 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Ok we're asked to suspend disbelief and accept that the Dari Dwayne Johnson has a brother who also happens to be a major opium trafficker. What are the odds that one family would produce two sons who take such radically different paths? This opium trafficker is also willing to take great risks to protect his brother. I guess Afghans are like that. They'll put their opium empire at risk to help their brother evade the Taliban over some shit that has nothing to do with opium.
Anyway it sucks that a westerner trying to battle the Taliban has to hook up with the shadiest figure in Afghanistan, a debauched criminal heroin trafficker. But sometimes that's just a practical necessity when you're trying to do the right thing in Afghanistan. This movie helps you understand that. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 5:52 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy I wanted to say something about the blatant homoeroticism in this film, but I'm just gonna poast this pic of the two main actors.
https://i.imgur.com/p1hkT0b.png |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 6:58 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy 20 minutes left and I don't know if I can make it to the end. I wanted to like this movie but I can already tell nothing bad will happen to the main characters because there's a literal infant in the truck with them while they shoot at bad guys. Also, the Taliban drive Nissans exclusively now. There was a Toyota pickup in the frame a few minutes ago, but it has all the Toyota decals stripped off. At the moment there are at least a half dozen Taliban vehicles in the mix, all Nissans. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#46528946) |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 7:08 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Awesome. A Spectre makes an appearance. In a related wrinkle, it turns out getting a SIV for the interpreter was no big deal. The interpreter did not have to be physically present at the embassy or even sign any forms. The Army dood was badly misinformed about by that by USCIS, and all of bureaucratic formalities were handled by a helpful contractor who just learned who these people are a few hours ago. The helpful contractor even appears at the scene of the battle with the SIV papers in hand so the bloodstained, shellshocked interpreter has them for the car ride to the airport. Why leave the papers at the airport where they could be stolen or lost? Still no idea who this contractor is, but he has a beard so I guess that makes him ex-military.
Relatedly, the same contractor is the reason this guy ran out of ammo. He gave the dood a full size SUV to drive around Afghanistan but only gave him one rifle and six magazines of ammo. It's not even clear how the Army dood gets grenades since the contractor didn't mention there being any in the truck. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 7:16 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Wow. The final image fades to a definition of "covenant," since the movie is called that:
Then we are treated to a minutes-long montage of pics of men in military uniforms smiling next to dusky looking bearded men. We are given no other information, but I guess it's safe to assume that these are real life heroes like the people in the movie and we should be working to rescue as many as we can before it's too late. We had a contract. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 7:28 PM Author: Irradiated sable therapy Here are some of the images from credits. I honestly don't know what Guy Ritchie expects us to make of these. The Afghans don't look like Vin Diesel types. They aren't doing anything heroic.
But more to the point, the movie doesn't tell us whether these men were rescued or left behind. There's nothing to tell us whether this was ever a real problem or not. In the first pic you can see everyone's face except the woman and the white dood with his hand on her. Weird. |
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Date: July 9th, 2023 7:30 PM Author: Flirting stage filthpig NSAM off his meds (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#46529046) |
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Date: July 25th, 2025 10:50 PM Author: I Listen to Porn Podcasts (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#49131906) |
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Date: July 25th, 2025 10:50 PM Author: I Listen to Porn Podcasts What’s so crazy is that he is catching all sorts of little details but then misunderstanding them (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5370330&forum_id=2Reputation#49131908) |