The Rip Movie Review: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Star in Netflix’s New (and Solid) Crime Story
The Rip Movie Review and Ratings from Filmyhype.com
Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, Scott Adkins, Kyle Chandler, Sasha Calle, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Steven Yeun
Director: Joe Carnahan
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
The Rip is the new one directed by Joe Carnahan (The Grey, A-Team) with a couple of friends inside (and outside) the screen, composed of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. In 2026, Netflix started enthusiastically. After the finale of the fifth (and final) season of Stranger Things, the house of American streaming wastes no time in playing a new ace up its sleeve. The Rip is a movie thriller/detective (at times nostalgic for the ’90s) set in a dark and desolate Miami. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have known each other since they were children, have worked together for more than thirty years, and won an Oscar together in 1998 for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting when they were 27 (Damon) and 26 (Affleck) respectively. Lately, they seem to have developed a taste for collaborating not only behind the camera, but also in front of it.
The Rip, available exclusively on Netflix from January 16th, is in fact the third feature film in which they appear together on screen after Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and Air – The Story of the Great Leap, where Ben Affleck played the dual role of director and actor – in the film he plays Nike co-founder and president Phil Knight – and Matt Damon played Sonny Vaccaro, the Midas of Nike marketing who had the intuition to sign a relatively unknown athlete to a contract with the company in 1984, whose name you might recognize: Michael Jordan. The sportswear line bearing his name still represents 10 to 13% of Nike’s annual revenue and has contributed to making the “Swoosh” multinational more than just a sports goods company, but a kind of true “cultural leader”. However, digressions aside, The Rip shares another thing with the film mentioned earlier: besides featuring the dynamic duo as the main stars, it was also produced by their production company, Artist Equity. This is a very important point that we will return to later.
The Rip Movie Review: The Story Plot
Directed and written by specialist Joe Carnahan, The Rip is a crime thriller/action whose plot can –literally– be summed up in a handful of lines. It is set in Miami, Florida, where everything takes hold after, at night, a policewoman is taken out by two guys with faces hidden by balaclavas. Just before, we see her in the car talking on the phone, reassuring someone who is probably involved in something very shady. She lurks in a parking lot on the metropolis’s seafront, but before being executed, she manages to send a text message to who knows who and throw her smartphone into the water to avoid leaving it in the hands of the attackers.
The policewoman was, in reality, the captain of a Miami police division that is responsible for recovering “dirty money” from money laundering and drug trafficking, a division that, due to the obvious “temptations” offered to its members, is already being monitored under normal conditions. Everything suffers a drastic resurgence after the captain’s murder. It includes Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon), Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Affleck), Detective Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Detective Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Detective Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno). A very close-knit group whose trust dynamics will be put to the test when they find themselves with a million-dollar “monstrous” kidnapping, which, however, will also make it clear where the bad apples nested among Miami’s law enforcement officials really are.
The Rip Movie Review and Analysis
From those who have made and/or taken part in films like The Town or The Departed, from those with a resume like that of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, despite the physiological ups and downs, it is reasonable to expect a film that does not make you regret the time spent watching it. And this, The Rip, fortunately, makes you regret nothing. And it doesn’t do that whether you love good entertainment stories or are old enough to remember that movies like these were once made for the big screen. Medium-budget action cops who, when cinema still had its centrality in people’s lives that extended beyond two or three weeks in December, when the box office is making waves everywhere, arrived on the billboards driven by the names of the stars written in capital letters on the posters. Sometimes they were good, other times bad, but this was still part of the “business risk” associated with the seventh art.
Now, in a context made up solely and exclusively of big-budget blockbusters, horror films, or low-budget independent films, it is precisely films like The Rip that have disappeared from the radar because they are, paradoxically, the riskiest to make. I’ll set the record straight right away: The Rip has nothing original about it; in fact, it exploits every single narrative trope of films of this genre. There’s the morally upright cop, the slightly stron*o but obviously very good one, the one who doesn’t understand what’s happening, the more foul-mouthed one, there’s the plot twist that makes the viewer wonder if they’ve really put these labels on the correct faces, there’s the shooting, there’s the chase, there’s the unreliable environment of a suburb of a major American metropolis… In short, there is everything that needs to be there. And it’s in the right places! Because even though Joe Carnahan is not Spielberg, since Blood, Bullets, and Octane from 1998, he’s proven to move well in situations involving crime and the dangers associated with it (if you didn’t see him when we were all stuck at home during the pandemic, get his Copshop: a riot of amiably old-school pulp violence). And in The Rip, he further confirms this.
And if the money in the film is downright dirty, there’s a reason I wrote in the title of this article that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck love cinema and its craftsmen. A reason that has to do with money and the mission of their Artist Equity. Since this is a film produced for Netflix, those who worked on it will have no way of making the same money as they normally make with a film that is produced for the cinema and then arrives on home video, then streaming, then on linear TVs. This is one of the key issues that actors’ and screenwriters’ unions fought over during the 2023 picket lines. Explained in practical terms: if a person works on a film produced for streaming, they will have no way of earning the residuals over the years (i.e., the money that arrives annually, from the above supply chain).
This is a relative problem for those named Ben Affleck or Matt Damon: when signing a contract for upfront (advance) payment for a film for some streamer, a major Hollywood star can afford to increase his fee by smoothing out the loss. If normally to participate in the feature film X an actor asks for the figure Y because he knows that he will then have a percentage of the profits and a guaranteed annual check calculated based on TV appearances, home video revenues and so on, when he works on a project linked to a streaming platform in a single submission he knows that all this will not happen and will be disconnected, upstream, a check 20-30-40% higher than usual. But cinema is an industry made up of workers, and when the aforementioned supply chain is missing, it is the many anonymous and far from rich and famous professionals who have worked behind the scenes who truly lose out.
Ben Affleck told The New York Times that for The Rip, they signed a special deal with Netflix under which all 1,200 people who contributed to the project will be entitled to a one-time bonus if the film achieves certain performance goals. The film will be rated in its first 90 days on Netflix and compared to other titles on the platform. Without specifying what metrics these are, because we imagine he just can’t do it contractually, Affleck explained to the authoritative publication that “Anyone involved in this film, from top to bottom, or who worked on the crew, will receive a bonus based on metrics we’ve already defined and that have been communicated to us.” An act of love and fairness towards one’s collaborators that is anything but a given.
There is a rather interesting reading framework when thinking about The Rip. The film, although it may seem like a nostalgic remake of some cult action films from the ’90s, hides an ethical veil represented by the corruption of man. Not necessarily understood as intention, but rather as a corruption of the soul. Imagine walking into a house (aware that you’re carrying out a seizure) and finding in front of you not $150,000 (as indicated in the tip), but $20 million in cash. A delicate situation where it is not enough to call a superior and in which any human being, at least for a second, would be teased by the idea of making a bribe disappear (or more than one, should there be an opportunity). However, not the American narcotics team… or maybe it is?
The Rip is a film as dark as the story it tells (oh, I forgot, it’s inspired by a true story, so no frills, what you see really happened), and it manages to delightfully immerse the viewer in the dim light of the house together with the team of heroes (or cowards?). The Miami neighborhood takes center stage in the film’s second act, conveying a sense of perdition and detachment from reality, beginning to instill even more fear in the story being told. What is even more striking, however, is the crucial moment in the story: the one where the cards are revealed, and the masks are removed. A scene characterized by shadow and penumbra, light and darkness, truth and lies. Seeing is believing.
Without beating around the bush, the main element of interest of The Rip is precisely the presence of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film, which they also produced, seems to have been designed precisely to ensure this reunion. Despite being joined by a very respectable cast (Steven Yeun, Sasha Calle, Teyana Taylor, and Kyle Chandler), there is a strong imbalance between the writing of the two protagonists and that of the secondary characters, who appear little more than sketchy. An evil? Not necessarily, if you accept that this film is structured to be Affleck and Damon’s stage and would hardly have had the same appeal in their absence.
Yet, it’s nice to note how this meeting of theirs on screen differs from what one might have expected. The Rip. In fact, it puts the two in the position of not being “pappa e ciccia” as happens in these cases, but rather of being linked more by work than by an external relationship to it and therefore of having no problem when necessary in pitting themselves against each other. Carnahan’s direction also underlines this, as on several occasions, rather than having the two actors live together in the same shot, he chooses to divide them, thus underlining the distance between them, at least until the end.
Anyway, seeing Affleck and Damon confront (and even clash) on screen is always a pleasure. The well-known chemistry between the two is also felt in this case, and it is also fascinating to see them dealing with two characters in constant balance between good and evil, between being the “good guys” (as the significant tattoo on Damon’s hand states) and the corruption-prone policemen. On several occasions, the viewer will find themselves doubting where the two stand with respect to these poles, which keeps them interested and pushes them to want to discover where their story will reach.
Speaking of history, writing (the screenplay is by Carnahan himself), The Rip It certainly doesn’t shine with inventiveness. Indeed, many steps are more complicated than complex, probably also due to the reliance on modus operandi specific to US law enforcement, and to which a different audience may be less accustomed. There are also numerous abrupt steps, until a final resolution that does explain the fascinating puzzle, but whose clues had not been adequately scattered along the way. However, even if Carnahan’s writing (his is the screenplay) is lame, his direction has a much different pace.
Worthy of mention are undoubtedly the shooting scenes, not many, but filmed with a camera that shakes with every bullet fired, and thus increases the intensity of these moments. The best sequence, however, is probably the one that takes place inside the armored van, where the four men in the story keep an eye on each other, their hands ready on their guns. The light that filters through the cracks and always illuminates only part of their faces helps to underline that co-presence of light and shadow in these characters. Effective choices that help create an overall compelling side dish to this new interaction between Affleck and Damon.
Among the positive elements of The Rip, it is definitely the relationship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, together with their artistic complicity, which leaks from the screen and reaches even those who are unaware of their friendship in real life. The two main actors manage to create a strong connection without having to explain too much: dialogue, glances, and small gestures consolidate a relationship of mutual trust, but also of unspoken and suspicious words that grow larger as the plot develops. The two actors are undoubtedly the film’s greatest asset, what stands out most of all. This is especially evident from the fact that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are the only two well-known names in the cast, while the other actors serve mainly as a framework and support for their performances.
The screenplay, instead, is the real sore point of the entire film. Just as the title suggests, the film shows an evident fracture between the first and second parts. The basic idea is to bring to the stage a world where everyone seems to have something to hide. From the very beginning, the viewer manages to trust none of the characters, all of whom appear as potential suspects. Although a more perceptive spectator may intuit the morality of some characters quite early, the constant moral precariousness remains one of the film’s strengths. The doubt is constant: you don’t know who to trust, and especially whether to trust. This aspect effectively contributes to the increase in tension in the first part of the film, where intrigues are defined, and questions multiply.
Money is the real protagonist of The Rip, especially their bewitching power over people: everyone, without exception, could be corrupted by a large sum of money. It is precisely this element that makes the film interesting, allowing it to distance itself, at least initially, from the usual American thrillers and to fit into a broader discourse on the fragility of personal and collective ethics. The message is very clear: money not only corrupts those who are already prepared, but it tests everyone. This incipit builds a dark and intriguing atmosphere, which, however, fades in the second part of the film, when the stylistic choices become more predictable.
The narrative progressively slides towards a more conventional imagination, in what is commonly referred to as an “Americanata”, losing the subtle ambiguity that had made the first part so interesting. Some sequences, especially in the final bars, give the impression of having been inserted more to lengthen the running time than out of any real narrative necessity. Some passages and deductions feel forced, as if the script needed to speed up and simplify the solutions, only to then devote itself to unbelievable chases and shootouts, which end up breaking the realism constructed up to that point. Despite these limitations, the film still manages to maintain close attention, even when the plot becomes more predictable. In conclusion, in fact, The Rip, of which you can find the trailer here, is an intriguing but unresolved film, alternating between effective moments and more questionable choices.
The Rip Movie Review: The Last Words
Great cast, great direction, and well-sharpened writing. Joe Carnahan’s The Rip is a crime thriller that works, shot as if it were a horror-tinged western, without sacrificing the surprise effect that stirs and moves an ending full of twists and turns. In an age of distracted streaming users, films like this remind us how the script is always the heart of a film. A key element in catching (and perhaps convincing) viewers. The Rip is a solid crime thriller with two faces from action cinema. Joe Carnahan’s direction is immersive and intense, so much so that it gets caught up in the spiral of lies alongside the protagonists.
