Review: ‘The Rip’ Streaming on Netflix

The cops and robbers, or cops as robbers, movie has reportedly achieved top-five online popularity based on U.S. views.

The new Netflix film The Rip starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as police officers is currently trending on the streaming giant’s platform.

The Rip, which was made by the two, A-List actors’ production company and then sold to Netflix, derives its title from law enforcement slang for seizing drug-cartel assets.

As of this writing, Netflix lists it as its number three movie in the U.S. in the way the video-on-demand company calculates total views.

Warning: Spoilers follow.

Real-life pals Damon and Affleck “star in this heart-pounding crime thriller that pits cop against cop when a stash-house raid uncovers millions in cartel cash,” according to a Netflix tagline.

An alternate Netflix tagline about the “gritty, suspenseful” film reads that “in this high-octane thriller inspired by true events, tensions rise and trust frays when five Miami cops find million in cash during a house search.”

At nearly two hours long  Netflix subscribers might need some high-octane coffee to get through the movie in one sitting especially since the heart-pounding part is kind minimal. A 90-minute cut might have been more effective, if not actually more suspenseful.

Plus, any movie that claims to be inspired by or based on true events is usually a red flag. More about that below.

Even with the running time, the good news is that The Rip, which was directed and co-written by Joe Carnahan, is a stand-alone movie rather than a limited series such as another new Netflix so-called thriller, His & Hers, which stretched out about three episodes worth of content into six circuitous installments.

Considering the mediocre category that is ironically known as Netflix originals, The Rip may be worth adding to your watch list — with some caveats.

In giving the film 2.5 stars out of four, a Washington Post reviewer asserted that “If you like hard-bitten crime and cop genre B-movies with an extra heaping of all the clichés, you’ll dig The Rip.”

Although hardly a ringing endorsement, an IMDB user appropriately or generously summed up The Rip as “…a moderately fun ride. And possibly Netflix’s least bad movie in a decade, which isn’t a great accolade, but it’s still something.”

In The Rip, Damon – who across as more realistic in his role than Affleck is in his — plays Miami-Dade PD Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT) leader Lieutenant Dane Dumars. It’s easy to miss, but Dumars engages in some creative bookkeeping, as it were, that proves decisive.

Affleck has the role of Sergeant J.D. Byrne, Dumars’ second in command. Steven Yuen (of Walking Dead fame), Teyana Taylor, and Catalina Sandino Moreno, play the team-member detectives under Dumar’s supervision.

Prolific, direct-to-video leading man and martial arts expert Scott Adkins (who wore a fat suit in John Wick: Chapter 4 ) has a small role as an FBI agent that bookends the movie.

Wilbur the cash-sniffing dog, however, gives the most impressive and likeable performance.

As far as it goes, the most enjoyable aspect of The Rip is trying to figure out the mixed motives, and the potential corruption, within the quintet of cops on scene, and the associated clever misdirection or twists as the plot unfolds.

The ultimate reveal does explain some, but not all, of the illogical plot points that come before it.

As you would probably expect, the implausibility of The Rip storyline is the primary, but not the only, forewarning for potential viewers:

• Except for a hot pursuit or a mutual-aid situation, local cops typically have no jurisdictional authority to conduct a raid or a search at a location in another city (in this instance, Hialeah) unless perhaps there was an extraordinary justification that the film’s “technical advisors” came up with.
• For a significant part of the movie, Dumars, et al., inexplicably seem to operate in slow motion with no sense of urgency even though the officers are in great danger, both physically and career-wise, the longer they remain in the stash house.
• The script contains too much inauthentic-sounding cop lingo or banter, which is supposed to be cool, but isn’t — and redundant dialogue generally.
• On the subject of dialogue, perhaps Netflix requires a contract stipulation in its movies and series that characters have to drop gratuitous F-bombs repeatedly. Continuous cursing adds nothing of value to a narrative or character development, however. Unfortunately, The Rip is no different from standard Netflix content in that regard.
• It supposedly took $100 million to produce The Rip, which takes place mostly inside a house and at night. Given that massive budget, maybe someone could have brought some lights to the set, because the action is often very difficult to see. Considering the price tag then, The Rip might seem like a rip-off to some degree. And depending upon the funding arrangements, the movie about a cash grab possibly might itself be a cash grab, although it’s important to mention that the behind-the-scenes crew is eligible for a bonus, depending up how The Rip performs on Netflix.
• That aside, the above-referenced stash house in question is miraculously located in an otherwise deserted suburban neighborhood, which almost makes you expect that The Rip will be a genre-combining movie that devolves into a horror flick.
• No one from the surrounding area calls 911 despite all the gunfire, either. Plus, the cops are oblivious to the house later catching on fire.
• Perhaps the most serious glitch in the scenario,The Rip is also one of the many, many movies where a villain has orchestrated an elaborate plot, but in the end, decides the spill of beans, which results in self-incrimination and self-sabotage. In The Rip, this tired trope inexplicably occurs in close quarters in front of several heavily armed individuals who are already in a bad mood.
• Another trope is the silly, pointless, go-it-alone chase that occurs at the end of the film, which culminates in an officer-involved fatal shooting, and which The Rip strangely treats as just a day at the beach, literally.
• Finally, viewers might reasonably wonder if a cartel would actually forfeit millions of dollars merely as a cost of doing business.

As far as the so-called true events are concerned, Forbes explains that “while the basic concept of The Rip — officers finding millions in cartel money and being required to count it — is true, most of what unfolds in the film, including the corruption, dirty cops, and the confrontation over the money, is not.”

Separately, information has recently surfaced that Netflix supposedly requires content creators to include an inordinate amount of exposition because subscribers tend to use the streaming service as background noise.

During a discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast, moreover, Matt Damon admitted that “there are behind-the-scenes discussions about reiterating ‘the plot three or four times in the dialogue’ to account for people being on their phones,” Variety reported, in part.

Damon similarly added that according to Netflix executives, “it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”

Another option is for Netflix to substantially improve its quality control so that viewers would be more attentive to its offerings.

The Rip currently has a 6.8 out of 10 user rating on IMDB based on nearly 600 reviews, and a 64 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.