Guy Ritchie has spent decades bouncing between crime capers, spy thrillers, and blockbuster franchises, but one of the filmmaker's most acclaimed movies feels remarkably different from the projects that made him famous. Now, three years after largely flying under the radar at the box office, one of Ritchie's collaborations with Jake Gyllenhaal is giving viewers another chance to discover one of the director's most unexpectedly effective films.

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is one of the filmmaker's best-reviewed pictures, and it's now getting a new lease on life streaming on Hulu. In the picture, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Sergeant John Kinley, an American soldier on a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Featuring local interpreters, the film draws on stories and plot threads largely inspired by true events.

What makes Guy Ritchie's The Covenant particularly interesting within his larger filmography is that it tends to abandon the filmmaker's usual bag of tricks. Those looking for Ritchie's typical fast-talking British gangsters or the heightened blockbuster antics seen in Sherlock Holmes won't find much of it here. Instead, Ritchie delivers a surprisingly straightforward war thriller built nearly entirely around the relationship between two men.

Opposite Oscar-nominated Gyllenhaal is Dar Salim as Ahmed Abdullah, one of the Afghan interpreters hired to work alongside Kinley's unit. In the film, the relationship between Kinley and Ahmed starts largely as a business necessity, though everything changes once the group is attacked by the Taliban. Abdullah, a former Taliban fighter who defected, saves Kinley and his squad from certain death.

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