The Rip (dir. Joe Carnahan)

by Jack Martin | Jan 17, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 112 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 16 January 2026

WHO’S IN THE RIP?

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Sasha Calle, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Scott Adkins, Kyle Chandler, Néstor Carbonell, Lina Esco

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Joe Carnahan (director, writer), Ben Affleck, Luciana Barroso, Dani Bernfeld and Matt Damon (producers), Clinton Shorter (composer), Juanmi Azpiroz (cinematographer), Kevin Hale (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A group of cops come across a tempting pile of cash during a raid…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE RIP?

The real-life friendship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon has brought about many things: award-winning movies, a successful production company, on-air “feuds” with Jimmy Kimmel, tabloid gossip that their relationship goes far beyond the friend zone, and much more. But while their natural chemistry (which clearly comes from having grown up together and forged similar career paths with each other) is often a delight to watch, it’s put to much grimmer use in writer-director Joe Carnahan’s The Rip, an intense crime thriller which all but flips Hollywood’s most famous bromance on its head.

In the film, Affleck and Damon – who also produce via aforementioned production company Artists Equity – respectively play Detective JD Byrne and Lieutenant Dane Dumars, both members of a specialised narcotics unit within the Miami-Dade Police Department who, along with fellow officers Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno), are reeling after the sudden murder of their captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco). Nonetheless, duty calls, as Dumars receives a tip on an address said to be hiding drug cartel money and brings his team to an eerily abandoned neighbourhood where, upon entering the residence of a young woman named Desi (Sasha Calle), come across over $20 million in cash. With it being such a massively tempting amount of money, suspicion soon shadows over the team as questionable behaviour, particularly from Dumars, leads to numerous accusations of trying to steal the cash for themselves, which along with threatening phone calls, even more menacing outside threats, and the revelation that Velez may have been killed by one of their own, makes this a particularly long night for everyone.

What makes The Rip a far more sinister Affleck/Damon pairing than most of their other on-screen team-ups is that here, they’re playing characters who you’re almost never entirely sure are actually meant to be friends. In early scenes together, there’s certainly a general understanding between them, which again their natural chemistry sells like hotcakes, but not to the point where you could envision these guys hanging out and waxing poetic about their lives outside of work. As the film spends its remaining time at this raided house, their animosity grows to a point where you genuinely believe that they could rip out each other’s throats if they so wanted to, especially as the mounting suspicion that one or possibly even both may be as crooked as many of the other officers within their department overwhelms whatever friendliness they may have shown one another.

The believability of their growing ferocity speaks to their skills as performers who, despite their very public friendship, can still convince the viewer that they could also turn on one another whenever the situation arises. It is also a credit to Carnahan, whose sharp script gifts the actors with lines that flip from pure vulgarity – watch in awe as Affleck repeatedly calls Scott Adkins’s FBI agent a word that rhymes with “grunt” – to slick, almost Tarantino-worthy asides that make you wish he’d flex his inner screenwriter a lot more than he does. Meanwhile, his direction is appropriately gritty, making eerie use of the borderline post-apocalyptic deserted environment we spend most of the movie in, while always making it possible that any one of the team could be capable of screwing everyone else over and claiming all this money as their own.

All of that being said, despite its strong attributes The Rip is less successful as a complete narrative. It is pretty generic cop thriller fodder when one breaks it down to its core, complete with corrupt forces and generally bullish police intimidation that you’d expect to see in a movie like this, though that doesn’t stop the script from making itself initially rather hard to follow, throwing so much exposition at you in the opening ten minutes that you’re on the verge of feeling lost well before we get to this ill-fated money raid. The overwhelming detail does smoothen once the film reaches the middle act, but although there’s some decent tension among this group and them weighing over whether to make off with this money or not, where it ends up going is rather easy to predict given the high profile of seemingly minor supporting players, which does take away some of the mystery that it’s trying to throw around. It’s also the kind of film where certain plot points rely on people doing or saying the right things at the right time in order for any of them to work, and this being the type of film that it is, it’s easy to see so much of it falling apart on account of one or more of these characters making one unforeseen lapse in judgement.

Surprisingly, the action itself – or what little of it there is – is also underwhelming. Much of it is shot with shaky handheld cameras which constantly run around with the characters as they open fire on largely unseen assailants, and the combination of that along with some slightly choppy editing can make it difficult to ascertain what is going on. This is especially true during a third act which almost becomes a completely different movie to the one we’ve been watching, given its relentless pacing and heavy display of some admittedly impressive stunt work, not to mention sticking far more to conventional action-thriller beats than before.

So, if you’re after an Affleck/Damon pairing that takes a few risks with its central casting, The Rip may not be the best of the bunch but there’s enough to make for a fine pizza-and-beer night with pals of your very own.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Rip is a fairly generic but still entertaining cop thriller that benefits from stars/producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon playing on their public friendship in more sinister roles than usual, while Joe Carnahan’s sharp and twisty dialogue just about compensates for some flimsy plotting and underwhelming action.