On the production side of things, Netflix is kicking off the new year rather modestly with the release of The Rip, a cops-and-robbers-but-the-robbers-are-cops drama “inspired by true” events.
The film, directed by an undervalued Joe Carnahan, features and promotes the pairing of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Miami-Dade cops heading up a taskforce colloquially called TNT (Tactical Narcotics Team). If the acronym seems a little on the nose, you might have a good enough sniffer to join the unit as it won’t be the only acronym you find and it won’t be the only time the bullseye is a bit bigger than the rest of the target.
The Rip is brimming with cliches, tropes, mysteries, and conflicts that comprise any detective yarn. You have your close-knit unit of well-dressed cops populated with some disposable actors, some of whom are up to the task of actually being in the movie. You have your grizzled veteran cop in Damon’s Dane Dumars, who might not be on the straight-and-narrow AND who also happens to have a tragic backstory. You have your interagency rivalries and disunity among departments. You have all the ingredients of a perfectly suitable cop drama that, actually, is a bit more digestible than others.
You can largely thank Joe Carnahan for the film’s ease of viewing. The man has been around for decades, had a bit of a spike in notability somewhere in there with the likes of Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The Grey, and, sort of, The A-Team, and then promptly went back under the radar. The man has style. What that style is, though, is moldable for the film he makes. Grim and dark is there for Narc and The Grey. Bombastic and fun is there for Smokin’ Aces or The A-Team. Here, with The Rip, you get a smattering of tone and style, and it mostly works.
Much of the film, surprisingly, plays like a horror movie. Dread is ever on the doorstep of a stash house the TNT crew have decided to raid per a mysterious tip. Paranoia is on the rise when the raid reveals a sum of money that, realistically, changes intent and understanding of a situation. You even have a play on inaccessibility of phones while the killer is stalking your protagonists. Carnahan navigates a lot of moving parts and some disparate elements pretty effectively. The paranoia doesn’t reach the heights of The Thing or Reservoir Dogs, but the dilapidated house nestled in a seemingly normal cul-de-sacmakes for a great setting and Affleck and Damon make for great leads.
While it’s clear why the two share the screen—their Hollywood bromance is almost refreshing to see still going strong some thirty years after it debuted—their characters’ mounting distrust drives the narrative. Affleck especially showcases his talent, being the one providing some energy fueled by a nice amount of machismo and what seems like a healthy bit of coke. There is an Office Space kind of opening to the movie with an FBI version of the two Bobs conducting interviews of the TNT unit. Here we immediately get to see Affleck’s character simmer and boil in contrast with Damon’s more reserved one. (You get your “good cop, bad cop” trope too! Only, they’re all bad cops! But which is the badder of the bad cops?) It’s a simple enjoyment, seeing the two veterans both in the context of the movie and their real-life careers, circling one another. And the movie, thankfully, doesn’t skimp on that.
With all the great tension and build-up reaching its zenith, we move into our final act, which plays more like an Ocean’s Eleven-y version of a Miami Vice episode. It’s disjointed, to be sure, like Netflix came in and laid out the algorithm for Carnahan. To be fair, seeds are pretty well planted to get us here, and Carnahan likes his twists and turns and revelations. Even something like Narc, which plays the genre straight and gritty, still utilizes late-act reveals to recontextualize the viewer’s perception. Here, though, even though we can enjoy or find satisfaction in tying things up, it still feels lesser than the taut dynamics of being stuffed in a ramshackle house fearing the unknown both within and without. Gunplay and action are fun, in the dosage the first two acts provide, but gets a touch sloppy in the climax. It doesn’t exactly mar the movie, but it does—it’s Carnahan mingling his tones, albeit less effectively than when he relegates them to single movies.
Overall, if you want a breezy, tense thriller that remains a notch above other streaming outings, The Rip is on the table. If you want something more than a cop drama, you might need to abandon the subgenre by this point. If you want some affirmation for the Damon/Affleck meta relationship (things get twisty with some allusions to a shared lover that I’m sure can in no way be interpreted the way I’m interpreting things), I don’t think you’ll find a cleaner image than the film’s parting shot.
