Joe Carnahan is back with a straight-to-streaming crime thriller that might be more notable for the deal that producers/stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon made with Netflix than the film itself. The Rip features Damon and Affleck as members of the Miami based Tactical Narcotics Team recently under scrutiny after their captain was murdered. The team's specialty is seizures (rips) of drugs, guns, and especially cash from Florida dope dealers. After a series of overlapping interviews with internal affairs, Dane Dumars (Damon) is somewhat mysteriously tipped off about a stash house that might be holding a significant sum of cartel cash. Upon further investigation, the team (also featuring Steven Yuen, Teyana Taylor, and Catalina Sandino Moreno) uncovers a fortune behind the attic walls and what follows is a test of trust as they realize that someone; the cartel, corrupt cops, or even one of their own; is not about to let that amount of money go quietly into an evidence locker.
Carnahan's career is one of peaks and valleys and while he hasn't hit the heights of Narc or The Grey for many years, he's still able to channel his strengths on occasion when it comes to hardboiled grit and action. There's evidence of that in The Rip which opens with a suitably kinetic sequence detailing the demise of that aforementioned captain. Unfortunately, while good, the action sequences in Rip are frequently shunted to the background in favor of repeated exchanges between long time TNT members Dumars and Byrne (Affleck) or the rest of the team either trying to determine their allegiances or flatly accusing each other of corruption. These scenes aren't poorly acted and Damon and Affleck have the chemistry you would expect from two men with a personal and professional partnership lasting many decades. However, the writing feels uninspired and repetitive maintaining an almost myopic focus on its two stars despite having such a killer ensemble. Teyana Taylor, rightfully being recognized for One Battle After Another, is given practically nothing to do here. What could have been a tense, paranoid pressure cooker feels more like a clunky whodunnit that has an especially lame reveal and one that comes early enough in the film that the final thirty minutes feels more obligatory than thrilling.
The inspiration from The Rip allegedly stems from an actual Florida police unit that focuses on following and seizing drug money and there are some light touches of police procedural on display. The idea that the team has to make the count onsite with the potential of enemies closing in all around them sounds like an excellent set up for the kind of edgy genre thriller Carnahan is very capable of. The intention may have been an exploration of ethical pitfalls of law enforcement who has to face the absurd material wealth of the criminals they're looking to bust. Unfortunately, The Rip fails on both fronts and delivers a watchable crime film that offers a few bright spots but ultimately falters to bring anything insightful to the genre.
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