Movie Review: ‘The Rip’

Plot: Inspired by a true story, director Joe Carnahan’s latest action thriller tells the story of the specialized Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT) of the Miami-Dade Police Department. Suspicions arise when the head of TNT, Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) is murdered and rumors of crooked cops robbing drug houses abound. When Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) receives a tip about a drug house in Hialeah, Dane’s team including Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Ben Affleck), Detective Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), and Detective Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) descend on the house only to discover much more than they bargained for. The “rip” (drug money) turns out to be in excess of $20 million. With crooked cops, drug cartels, and other unknown parties interested, the night becomes a deadly cat and mouse game of intrigue, deception, and betrayal…and not everyone may make it out alive.

Review: Like many cinephiles, I often lament the continuing decline of the theater experience. As evidenced by the box office returns for the last several years, less and less people are showing up to the theater. You can blame everything from rising movie ticket costs, to short attention spans, to the convenience of streaming movies instantly from the comfort of your own home. Now I’m not saying that movie theaters will eventually go the way of the dodo, but the industry has certainly experienced a titanic shift in the wake of Covid and the various guild strikes. Which movies receive a theatrical release and how they are marketed is completely different from what it was twenty years ago.

Director Joe Carnahan’s latest action crime thriller The Rip is a classic example of the change in landscape. In 2006 an action crime thriller from the director of Narc, The A-Team, and The Grey starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon would have received a wide theatrical summer release with marketing galore. Unfortunately, this is 2026 and The Rip has been “regulated” to Netflix. Yet, just because movies (even ones with significant stars) don’t receive a theatrical release, this doesn’t automatically equate to lesser quality. So it begs the question: is The Rip a good film or does it deserve the pejorative term “streaming movie”?

While The Rip doesn’t scale the heights of Bad Boys or The Rock and is somewhat predictable, it nevertheless is a sharp and entertaining actioner with some strong performances from Affleck and Damon.

Considering writer/director Carnahan’s earlier work, The Rip is a very straightforward story that moves from A to B to C. Not nearly as innovative as Boss Level, nuanced as Narc, or masterful as The Grey, The Rip is much more in line with The A-Team or Copshop. Please don’t misread that as some backhanded denigration. The Rip was always going to be a streaming film and how you make a streaming film for Netflix is different than theatrical. (Just see Matt Damon’s recent interview where he discusses Netflix’s edict to repeat the plot multiple times in the dialogue because people are on their phones.) Honestly, sometimes simple and familiar is refreshing. I don’t need to attend the Commander’s Palace in New Orleans for every meal. Sometimes a cheeseburger from In-N-Out is just as satisfying.

While Carnahan’s writing in The Rip may merely evoke the satisfaction of a servicable all beef patty, the way he directs the action sequences are worthy of praise. The majority of The Rip is set in one house on a seemingly abandoned cul-de-sac, yet rather than see that as a limitation, Carnahan views it as an opportunity. There’s no giant action set pieces like you might see in John Wick, so instead Carnahan amps up the cat and mouse tension. Deliberate power outages, mysterious calls to the house, and a violent but somewhat understated shootout that may or may not be a drug cartel midway through, make The Rip much more of a thriller rather than an actioner. And it works. That’s not to say that the action isn’t present. There’s a third act set piece involving an armored car that was particularly satisfying. It’s clear where the majority of the $100 million budget (aside from Damon and Affleck’s salaries) went to. However, the excitement comes from trying to find out who’s deceiving who and which group is actually trying to steal the $20 million rip.

Carnahan’s ability to amp up the tension is an extension of Juan Miguel Azpiroz’s sublime cinematography. He uses shadow and light in unexpected ways, not easy when most of The Rip is set at night. I particularly appreciated a scene where an unknown figure creeps up on Affleck’s Byrne and you only see his shadow. There’s an intimacy and visceral connection in Azpiroz’s camerawork that elevates The Rip from your typical humdrum, run-of-the-mill actioner. It’s coupled with a tense and propulsive score from Clinton Shorter who delivers his best work since District 9.

One element that slightly hampers The Rip is in the underdevelopment of its supporting cast. Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor is mostly an after thought. Despite being present through the entire movie, Catalina Sandino Moreno’s Detective Lolo Salazar seemingly only speaks when she’s talking about her ex and her children. Even the great Kyle Chandler’s DEA Agent Matty Nix is slightly two dimensional, strange given his importance to the plot in the second half of the movie. Sasha Calle fairs the best as Desi Molina, the owner of the house who’s swept up in the madness. As the caretaker of her recently deceased grandmother, Calle’s character is the most altruistic and the one who evokes the most empathy.

But let’s be honest here. The real reason any of us are reaching out through the interwebs to the Netflix servers and allowing this movie into our domiciles is in order to watch Damon and Affleck light up the small screen. Other than some throw away cameo scenes in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, the dynamic duo didn’t work together for over twenty years. I know that both have gone on record saying it’s because they wanted to blaze their own paths, but I for one lament the fact that it took so long between Dogma and The Last Duel. The two just have such exquisite chemistry together, and the same holds true in The Rip. Damon’s Dane is the more stoic and level headed of the two, carrying the burden of a son who recently died of cancer. While ostensibly collected and in control, even his calm demeanor gets tested as the night begins to unravel and you start to question his motivations. Meanwhile, Affleck’s J.D. is the more volatile of the pair, obviously harboring resentment over being passed over for promotion in favor of Dane. He’s also emotionally compromised after the murder of Captain Velez, who he was carrying on an illicit affair with. It’s an obvious and unsubtle “fire and ice” relationship, but it absolutely works. And when the two inevitably come into conflict? Cinematic gold.

While The Rip will never join Heat or The Town in the pantheon of great crime thrillers, it certainly scratches the action itch on a slow Friday night. Damon and Affleck’s continued on screen chemistry is more than worth firing up the app. So when it comes to the pair’s latest cinematic sojourn, I say “let it”…well you can probably guess the rest.

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See

Masterpiece

The Rip: 7/10