| Worth seeing: | for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck doing their best to fire on all cylinders in a low-key plot that fizzles rather than bangs |
| Director: | Joe Carnahan |
| Featuring: | Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kyle Chandler, Lina Esco, Nestor Carbonell, Sasha Calle, Scott Adkins |
| Length: | 115 minutes |
| Certificate: | 15 |
| Country: | US |
| Released: | 16th January 2026 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
When the head of the Miami police Tactical Narcotics Team, Captain Velez, is shot dead, an FBI investigation shines a spotlight on allegations of corruption in her team.
Her successor, Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) and his long-term friend and partner, Sergeant JD Byrne (Ben Affleck), come under particular scrutiny – not least because JD was involved in a secret relationship with his former boss – and his estranged brother Del (Scott Adkins) is heading the FBI inquiry.
With trust between the team members already at an all-time low, Dane gets a tip-off that a drugs gang is hiding cash in a safehouse and leads the team off to seize the stash. When they arrive, they discover that rather than being in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, as expected, barrels containing nearer $20 million have been hidden behind a wall in the attic.
As they start the long job of counting the cash, threatening calls are made to the house, warning them to leave, while they all suspect each other of plotting to keep millions of dollars to themselves.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
They say that big sums of money can do that to people – how many families have fallen out over a will? Joe Carnahan’s straight-to-Netflix crime thriller takes that idea to its limits.
Fronted by stars of the status of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, you have to wonder why even Netflix decided not to give this a big-screen outing before settling into its final home – in homes. In interviews, Damon has said the script was written to take account of viewers being on their phones while they’re watching, suggesting that a theatrical release was never even on the cards.
Apart from a flashback to the murder of the TNT Captain, The Rip unfolds entirely over the course of a few hours, as the cops are grilled about the shooting, before they head off on this fateful new job.
But if they were genuinely suspected of murdering a senior police officer, would they be free to carry on their duties? Let’s park that for now.
Carnahan digs a little into the back stories of Damon and Affleck’s characters – the former has recently divorced and his ten year old son has just died from cancer, while the latter has lost out on a promotion, just as his brother is questioning him about the death of his lover. Two great sob-stories right there, but Carnahan is less interested in the rest of the team – Steven Yuen, Teyana Taylor and Catalina Sandino Moreno don’t seem to be motivated by anything much – and the women spend most of the film locked in the garage counting money, while the men are running around pointing guns at each other.
Early in the film, you’ll find your loyalties flipping to and fro, as Carnahan effectively manages and upends your expectations, although you know that your early suspicions will be subverted, or there wouldn’t be enough plot to fill the film.
That said, after the final twist comes – in a taut, claustrophobic clash – there are two well choreographed chases – one by car and other on foot – but then there’s an extra ten minutes of totally unnecessary scenes. It’s as if they’d finished filming before the end of their contracts, so they just filmed a bit more while they were still available.
There’s the empathetic one, the grizzled no-nonsense one, the clean-as-a-whistle one, the jovial one – and then there are the women, still stuck in the garage, counting the cash – and looking after the dog.
Flawed, troubled characters facing their biggest ever challenge, both professionally and personally – all on one fateful night. It’s very watchable but disappointingly low-key for such high profile stars.
It’s an efficient and effective police drama that closely follows the twisting and turning formula of a genre film but it lacks ambition, breaks no new ground and signposts most of its narrative surprises. And one of the biggest surprises, is that there aren’t really that many surprises – it often cranks up the tension, only to let the air pffft out of the balloon, rather than allow it to explode. If you’re waiting for a Heat or Reservoir Dogs moment, you’ll be disappointed.