The Rip (dir. Joe Carnahan)

By: Adam Freed

Nothing elevates a predictable genre like infusing it with two of Hollywood’s most reliable leading men. As far as screen partnerships go, few have stronger roots than the duo of Matt Damon (The Martian, Good Will Hunting) and Ben Affleck (Argo, Gone Girl).   While it feels somewhat odd to find the long-secure A-listers' names atop Joe Carnahan’s Netflix streamer The Rip, their presence certainly amplifies the impact of what could’ve been a forgettable South Florida heist thriller.  There are moments early in The Rip where the cauldron of possibility simmers allowing for the hope that perhaps the streaming film is an aberrational surprise akin to genre epitomization like Heat (1995) or to a lesser extent, a more workmanlike Den of Thieves (2018).   Despite an alluring premise that follows a team of questionably motivated Miami narco enforcement officers who stumble across a cash hold surpassing 20 million dollars, and an impressive ensemble cast that features Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another), Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) and Steven Yeun (Nope), The Rip falls victim to the limitations of its direction and visual production, falling victim to cliche, rather than striving to forge new territory within the well traveled genre.

Given its humid South Florida locale, there is something shockingly midwestern about the story that Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team) wrote for his streaming production.  The first half of the writer and director’s cop thriller is a hardhat and lunchpail type of story adorned with all of the burning cigarettes and police station styrofoam coffee cups nostalgia can afford to provide  It's impossible to ignore sinking feeling that as the stakes of The Rip escalate, so too did the level of insincerity required of the performers to prolong any modicum of believability.  More bluntly, where Damon and Affleck at first feel right at home leading the charge, they begin to feel far too big for the tropish and predictable nature of Carnahan’s middling cops and cartels fare.  The limitations of the production contain a vast majority of the action to a few rooms of a Miami stash house in which the visually drab and monochromatic appearance of The Rip drains much of the story’s initial intrigue away, leaving a moderately interesting team of singularly motivated law enforcement officers in a dark room playing tug of war with a life-changing supply of illicit cash. 

Lifetime fans of Damon and Affleck are likely to find satisfying moments within the Netflix production to support their willingness to sit through its bloated 130 minute run, but in a year in which Damon is set to star in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Affleck returns to the director’s chair with Animals, The Rip is the least interesting project to which either star will be attached in 2026.  If a deep winter chill or a case of the post-holiday blues is reason enough to avoid a trip to the local cineplex, audiences can do a lot worse than The Rip.  The problem is that expectations should be much higher than this middling tier of production value and storytelling, especially when it is bolstered by two of Hollywood’s most impressive and promising stars.

Target Score 5.5/10 - Initially presenting as an intriguing Miami-based cops and cartels drug cash thriller, The Rip quickly falls victim to its own worst instincts.  Despite the best efforts of Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and the rest of a promising cast, it is impossible to escape the feeling that the Joe Carnahan Netflix production is an underachiever.