The Rip Review: Damon-Affleck’s Police Action-Thriller Shows Confidence Adequately

If there was ever a filmmaking duo that you can always rely on to make an action-packed movie, it’s Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Both actors have consistently delivered on making a range of thrilling films and now, they’ve come back with The Rip.

Based on a real life event, The Rip follows a group of officers who come across a secret cache of millions of dollars. However, they all start to question the legitimacy of their operation as morals are tested, clues are discovered, and friendships shatter.

Given the film’s stakes and formula, one might watch The Rip just to see Matt Damon and Ben Affleck confidently bounce off each other. While that chemistry is present, there are other parts of this film that truly make it stand out.

For one, the conspiracy component of The Rip is what makes this film nicely cohesive. In its first 80 or so minutes, Joe Carnahan captivates you through these interwoven schools of thought when they first discover the cache through each character.

Matt Damon’s Dane tries to look on the bright side, but is struggling with his own personal pains after losing his wife and partner, Jackie. His incredible amount of debt, both financially and emotionally, is what drives him into getting into conflict with his close friend, JD.

Throughout the first act, Damon’s mannerisms, along with Carnahan’s direction, makes you truly believe that Dane wants to take the money for himself. From telling his teammates different numbers to taking their phones away, besides JD, each choice that’s made really nails in that presumption.

On the other hand, Ben Affleck’s JD stays true to the police code, but is also still reeling from being in a secret relationship with Jane, which Dane discovered. His doubt about Dane’s actions and increasing anger doesn’t feel misplaced at the start, but as things get crazier, JD becomes a character to sympathize with.

The chemistry between Damon and Affleck is simply undeniable, as always. Both actors are able to fortify who Dane and JD are without having to forcefully make us believe it so. Their tight friendship really emphasizes this shared emotional struggle that both of them confront.

This is especially so when the second act comes around, where environmental clues really come into play. The way that these moments of exploration and confrontation are shot between Dane and JD just keeps you feeling that at least one of them is watching the larger game.

The rest of The Rip‘s cast is also pretty impressive as well. Their charismatic, if somewhat contained, personalities and motivations bear some weight on the film’s narrative, but feel like they’re mostly there for building suspicions.

Teyana Taylor’s Numa is probably the most down-to-earth, being a bit relatably comedic, but still grounded enough to drive the story forward. Taylor is mostly paired up with Catalina Sandino Moreno’s Lolo, who’s also financially struggling and wants to provide for her kids.

Though Numa and Lolo are mostly packed into a single room, where they’re counting the money, the conversations they share do bear some weight as well. Both of them want to be able to make a living from this policework, even if it means that they have to give in to those greedy urges.

There’s a lot of moving parts to this film, but the one character who’s definitely suspicious (which proves to be true) is Steven Yeun’s Mike Ro. Initially, he’s presented as a good guy, simply wanting to get the job done right.

However, Carnahan makes the twist as clear as day by the film’s midpoint, which does provide that narrative intrigue even more. Once that reveal happens, it does make you ask why he’d flip, but the pacing cuts down on that interest, bit by bit.

He’s still empathetic to listening to others, which is mostly seen in his interactions with Sasha Calle’s Desi. She’s clearly the most innocent one out of the entire roster of characters, so allowing that bond to develop to make us sympathize with Ro’s “just” beliefs.

Although we know that, by that point, Ro might be one of the bad guys, it feels like everything’s still scattered at least plot-wise. This gives the film enough time to hammer in that doubt, but once The Rip enters its third act, it starts to become to over-emphasized.

What made The Rip a compelling film was allowing that conspiracy-mystery element to sizzle by making each character well-reasoned to propel things forward. All of them know that this job will get them out of financial worry, but they can only do so much.

When the second reveal happens, it almost feels like it was coming, given how tightly knit the relationship tree of this film is. It simply plays into that trope of moral conflict all too well as one of these characters (Kyle Chandler’s Nix) was overly excited in the few scenes he had up until the end.

The whole third act is purely action-packed, which certainly satisfies those who waited to see hand-to-hand combat, car chases, and shoot-outs. Though this portion of the film won’t disappoint viewers who are there for the stunts, it does feel like it pads out the film for a bit longer than expected.

This might also be due to the whole explanation Dane and JD relay when they’re finally in that car. Sometimes, it’s best to just keep some of the moments during such explanatory scenes to a minimum because it’s essentially force-feeding some bits of what we already knew.

The Rip turns out to be another Matt Damon-Ben Affleck collaboration that’ll satisfy action movie fans who enjoy a bit of an interesting conspiracy. Sure, it may fall into some of the pitfalls that come with such mystery-centric films, Damon, Affleck, and Carnahan put on an adequate showing.

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The Rip is now streaming on Netflix.

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