Title: The Rip
Describe This Movie In One Die Hard Quote:
JOHN MCCLANE: Drop it, dickhead. It’s the police.
TONY: You won’t hurt me.
JOHN MCCLANE: Oh, yeah? Why not?
TONY: Because you’re a policeman. There are rules for policemen.
JOHN MCCLANE: Yeah. That’s what my captain keeps telling me.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Police Cops!
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2.5 beagles out of 5.
Tagline: “Trust has a price.”
Better Tagline: “Did you know Ben Affleck has a back tattoo? Did you want to see it?”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Miami-Dade Police captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) has been murdered, and the members of her own Tactical Narcotics Teams (TNT) are prime suspects. Her second-in-command, Lt. Dane Dumars (Matt Damon), gets tipped off that a house in Hialeah contains ill-gotten cash. Upon arrival, Dumars, Sgt. JD Byrne (Ben Affleck), and the rest of the squad discover $20 million in cartel money and Desi (Sasha Calle), the resident who may or may not know more than she’s letting on.
“Critical” Analysis: Hetero life mates Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have appeared in quite a few notion pictures together. This marks their first collaboration since 2023’s Air, and the ease with which they fall back into (occasionally strained) camaraderie is one of The Rip’s main selling points.
Joe Carnahan (Narc, The Grey) directs from his own script. Carnahan’s past efforts confirm his familiarity with blurred lines between good-cop, bad-cop, and The Rip does its best to keep you guessing the possibly sinister motivations driving Dumars, Byrne, and the others. Several members of TNT are looking to avenge Captain Velez’s murder, for example. Meanwhile, Dumars is mourning the recent loss of his young son, and let’s not overlook the temptation presented by millions of cartel dollars.
Carnahan keeps things twisty (even as the script falls victim to the Netflix m.o. of restating the plot several times so home viewers glued to their phones can still follow along). Could Capt. Velez’s killer be part of the tactical squad? The FBI sure thinks so. Speaking of rip-offs, martial arts B-movie fave Scott Adkins plays Affleck’s Fed brother and doesn’t even get to roundhouse kick anybody.
Complications add up when TNT arrive at the house, courtesy of a Crime Stoppers tip received by Dumars. And Carnahan ably ramps up the tension once they find the money and Desi abruptly advises them to take it and leave. Genre dictates that potentially shady cops + money = ethical dilemmas, and TNT are no different. Dumars takes everyone’s phones — suspicious in itself — but Detective Ro (Steven Yeun) keeps texting someone from a burner. And Detectives Numa (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo (Catalina Sandino Moreno) seem perfectly comfortable with the idea of pocketing at least part of the loot.
Oh, and if you’re worried about the presence of icky girls in your dad movie, fear not. Taylor and Moreno are completely absent from the dick-swinging third act.
In the end, betrayals and red herrings collide with extreme prejudice as TNT mixes it up with — in no particular order — the Colombians, Hialeah cops, old station wagons, and the DEA. The violence is satisfying, if predictable.
Releasing this on Netflix instead of in theaters probably didn’t make much difference to the filmmakers. I’m sure Damon, Affleck, and Carnahan made out well. Still, one can’t escape the sneaking suspicion that something designed for actual theatrical release wouldn’t look like it was shot in the bottom of a koi pond. Granted, the bulk of the action does take place at night. Sure, whatever, but “dark” doesn’t have to equal “murky.” And Carnahan inexplicably shoots a climactic fight scene from a distance, recalling Paul Greengrass levels of incoherence.
The Rip isn’t what I’d call a failure. The dialogue cracks, as do the high velocity rounds flying everywhere. Miami seems a counterintuitive setting for two Sons of Boston, but Damon and Affleck could sleepwalk through these roles. Yet it’s also a variation on a theme we’ve seen many times before, sometimes from Carnahan himself. And it remains disappointing that mid-tier movies like this are eschewing theaters (and the elevated audio and visual quality that usually go along with), especially when you consider how barren the slate in January and February already is.
The Rip is now streaming on Netflix.