How Troops Can See Free 'Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant' Advance Screenings

Now that it's safe to go to the base theater again, The Exchange Reel Time Cinema and MGM are giving military members, retirees and military dependents the chance to catch a movie before it opens to the general public. "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant" will open in select Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) theaters on April 15, 2023. 

In collaboration with the USO, troops and dependents at Fort Irwin, California, will get a special screening on April 14 instead, along with a visit from the film's stars, Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim.  

In the film, Gyllenhaal is Army Sgt. John Kinley. While deployed to Afghanistan, he was caught in a Taliban ambush and nearly killed. He is wounded and doesn't remember the ambush. His interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim), who put his own life at risk to save Sgt. Kinley.  Ahmed not only rescues Kinley from the ambush, he makes an epically heroic effort to get Kinley to safety. 

Kinley eventually returns home, but learns that Ahmed and his family were not allowed safe passage to the United States as promised. Kinley decides he has to repay Ahmed for saving his life and returns to Afghanistan. There, Kinley becomes a one-man extraction force to retrieve his former comrade before the Taliban can hunt them down and exact their revenge on Ahmed and his family. 

Fans might know Guy Ritchie's previous works, "Snatch," "RocknRolla" and "Sherlock Holmes." Military-connected fans with base theater access can catch this latest film of his at the following installations on April 15:

• Fort Huachuca, Arizona 
• Fort Jackson, South Carolina 
• Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
• Fort Novosel (formerly Fort Rucker), Alabama
• Fort Polk, Louisiana
• Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota
• Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas
• Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana
• Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas
• Travis Air Force Base, California
• The U.S. Military Academy at West Point

For anyone who's ever complained about the base movie theater at any installation ever, this is what you've always asked for: a first-run movie at a great price. You even get to see it before the rest of America. 

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on LinkedIn.

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