Joe Carnahan, the director of gritty cop flicks like “Narc” and “Copshop,” is back in his wheelhouse with the effectively entertaining “The Rip,” the rare Netflix original action film that actually plays like something you’d want to see in theaters. BFFs Matt Damon and Ben Affleck lean into their age a bit more than usual to play world-weary Miami cops faced with the allure of corruption. Carnahan sets up his players, the backdrop of the dangerous world against which this will unfold and then bounces them off one another in a way that keeps audiences guessing. Through it all, the Oscar winners for “Good Will Hunting” do strong character work, especially Damon, elevating “The Rip” even further. This is the kind of staple on basic cable channels like TNT that old men like to rail about not getting made anymore. They’ll eat it up and be satisfied by this old-fashioned meal.
“The Rip” opens with a Miami cop named Jackie (Lina Esco) being murdered by masked thugs. It’s clear she got too close to someone, but was it a criminal or one of her fellow cops? Carnahan cuts to interrogations of Jackie’s partners on an elite Miami task force, one led by Lieutenant Dane Dumars (a perfectly grizzled Damon). These initial scenes set up Dane as the brains to the brawn of Detective Sergeant JD Byrne (Affleck), the latter the kind of guy more likely to throw hands against the superior questioning if he’s dirty (even if it’s Scott Adkins). Although, like so much of Carnahan’s twisty, clever script, even these initial scenes are a bit of a fake-out. This is the kind of movie in which you’re constantly questioning who’s dirty, who’s clean, or if everyone is somewhere along the spectrum.
Dane gets a tip that there’s a stash house for the cartel that’s got money waiting to be seized by Miami P.D. That’s what Dane and his team do: Go into illegal operations and “rip” the illegally gotten gains for the police force. As rumors circulate that corrupt cops have been keeping rips for themselves, Dane and his task force head to a house at the end of a seemingly mundane cul-de-sac. (The production design that makes an ordinary circle of houses feel threatening will be underrated.) When they arrive and find just a young woman named Desi (a very good Sasha Calle) with no idea why they’d even want to search her grandmother’s house, things quickly seem off. But the money-sniffing dog is going crazy. Maybe that’s because there’s $20 million in the attic.
A stash that big—the gang was expecting low six figures like most rips—sends the group into a tizzy. Detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno) debate with Dane and JD about what to do next as Desi looks on. It’s not just the temptation to split the money and head for the hills; it’s the fact that whoever stashes that amount of money would do everything they can to protect it, right? The idea that the team has do something, anything, quickly before the owner of the cash comes armed and ready to protect it gives “The Rip” a wonderful tension. It’s not just the question of whether they steal the money, but if they’ll even have time to make a choice before gunfire rains down on them. And will it be the cartel or the dirty cops who come to claim the deposit?
The ticking clock of “The Rip” is effective enough, but Carnahan doesn’t rest on that, also having a blast playing with questions of loyalty within that tense dynamic. Could Dane be the one behind the corrupt rips? Did he get Jackie killed? What does DEA Agent Matty Nix (Kyle Chandler) know? Why does Ro have a burner? Did Desi really not know anything? Can greed and justice intersect? The constant flow of questions and suspicion gives “The Rip” remarkable momentum. It’s a long film (over 130 minutes), and you don’t feel it at all for the large majority of that runtime. (The final scenes of “tying things up” could have been cut by about half, even if the very last one is a beautiful grace note.)
It helps to have a great cast from top to bottom. Carnahan is an underrated director of performance when he wants to be, including one of Ray Liotta’s best turns in “Narc” and one of Liam Neeson’s best in “The Grey.” No one here lives up to those deeply underrated master classes, but it’s a testament to Carnahan’s direction that there’s not a false note in this talented ensemble. Everyone works, especially Damon, who leans into his age in ways he hasn’t much to date, selling how trauma and exhaustion might impact a man tired of always being a hero.
“The Rip” goes on a little too long in its final scenes and jettisons a few too many of its supporting characters along the way as the twists are revealed, as clever as they are. However, it’s so much better than most streaming original action films that no one will mind. In the end, it actually got me hoping that Carnahan could just become an in-house Netflix Original Action Guy, maybe even teaching a few of the big-budget hires how to do this kind of thing well. If we got a movie as airtight as “The Rip” every January, Netflix would be a better place. Although maybe I’m just being greedy.
