The Rip, 2026.
Written and Directed by Joe Carnahan.
Starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, Sasha Calle, Kyle Chandler, Steven Yeun, Scott Adkins, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Nestor Carbonell, Daisuke Tsuji, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Iván Amaro Bullón, Kathleen Deming, Dave Ferrier, Lina Esco, Scot Teller, Allie Moreno, and Chyril Paulann.
SYNOPSIS:
A group of Miami cops discovers a stash of millions in cash, leading to distrust as outsiders learn about the huge seizure, making them question who to rely on.
More than a gift to see Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reunited on screen, this is a genius stroke of casting for writer/director Joe Carnahan’s paranoia-laced crime thriller The Rip that, well, rips. Serving as high-ranking Miami cops, their unit (which also consists of notable actors Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun, and Catalina Sandino Moreno) is mentally shaken up by the loss of Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) in the line of duty, with the film utilizing a cold open (a choice proven to be the right one, with not an ounce of superfluous material here in this tightly edited crowdpleaser) placing each officer under questioning to ascertain whether or not there is the possibility this was an inside job.
Playing best friends also on-screen, the recently promoted but personally adrift Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon) and no-nonsense hornet’s nest shaker Detective Sergeant JD Byrne (Affleck) trust one another implicitly and want justice. That is, until a “Crimestopper tip” comes in, prompting Dane to bring his team onto a job after their shift that technically does not qualify as overtime, to search the hoarded home of Desi (Sasha Calle), who had inherited it following the death of her grandmother.
Typically, these tips are intended to inform law enforcement teams of safehouses withholding dirty drug money, here believed to belong to the Colombian cartel. As such, they bring along a dog who sniffs out cash rather than narcotics, which is nifty. If anything, the dog should be suspicious of Dane, who starts behaving weirdly (the moment before telling his crew about the job), which increasingly grows erratic to the point where even JD has no clue whether or not he can still be trusted or if he is looking to pocket the exorbitant amount of cash hidden in this home that Desi is aware of and tries to hide from them, while knowing more than leading on.
From the minute Dane begins informing his team of the details, he doesn’t quite seem sure of what he is getting himself into, and greatly underestimates just how much money is in the home. It is such a startling amount (crossing way over into the millions) that, considering the recent loss of Jackie, it somewhat sends him into an anxiety-ridden spiral that one of his own could turn against him. He collects everyone’s phones, asserts that he will not inform their superiors, and orders that the unmarked cash containers be counted. Meanwhile, other characters also begin behaving strangely. Then there are mysterious calls coming to the home threatening violence, with this entire cul-de-sac seemingly being abandoned, with whoever is around using porch lights to communicate in Morse code (lights and shadows frequently come into play for some striking photography).
That unique and unorthodox method of communication isn’t the only intelligent aspect here, as The Rip is a smart and tense thriller that appears to have been designed in a lab to leverage that tight personal and Hollywood friendship Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, testing it and forcing the audience into an equally awkwardly suspenseful lane of picking a side while watching their characters’ connection unravel and loyalties tested. With an acronym tattooed across his hand translating to “Are we the good guys”, we are also made aware that Dane’s personal life is crumbling; one also wonders if he is instinctively occasionally staring at that to prevent him from falling to a corrupt side. Perhaps he is already there. Maybe someone else has something to hide.
This isn’t to say The Rip is entirely unpredictable in what it is doing, but more that the information that is dispersed is done so in a skillful manner that, when it comes time for all of it to come into play in a revelatory story context, there is blistering and palpable sweaty tension. It would be a spoiler to say what pinpointing the reveals comes down to, but safe to say a conversation inside an armored vehicle where the good guys and bad guys are made clear is a rousing sequence that is among the best scenes of Joe Carnahan’s filmmaking career, and more exciting than the more traditional action following it up. There are tidbits where it seems Carnahan is attempting to get at something about pay and how little overtime is rewarded in these law enforcement areas, and while one wishes that was expanded upon slightly, the mystery drama and white-knuckle thrills suffice.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
