'The Rip' review: Ben Affleck & Matt Damon cash in on an opportunity

Netflix

You thought one Florida man was enough to test your patience? What if we made it plural? Loyalty gets tested, people get shot and bills get counted in The Rip, writer-director Joe Carnahan's action thriller set in Miami and Hialeah. From a story devised by Carnahan and Michael McGrale, our tale begins with a cop getting murdered by masked men, an event that may be tied to a conspiracy about crooked law enforcement. Shortly after, lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) and detective sergeant J.D. Byrne (Ben Affleck) follow up on a tip along with a ragtag team—comprised of detectives Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno), Mike Ro (Steven Yeun) and Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor)—in order to search a suspected drug house, owned by seemingly normal person Desiree "Desi" Lopez Molina (Sasha Calle), for hidden money. They find more money than expected, which obviously leads to plenty of trouble.

We do have to ignore the very generic, TV procedural-esque opening that would be on the cutting room floor if the creatives had a bit more confidence in what they've made, but once the narrative begins revving up its engine and putting together the team, you do lean forward instinctually. Affleck and Damon are a reliable leading duo with strong interplay between them and no one else in the main cast decided to phone it in for an easy payday for a streaming movie either, which helps a ton. Affleck in particular stands out, playing the different shades of an entertaining fella and a jerk quite deftly. For exactly one hour and one second, The Rip is a competently put together and sufficiently tense pressure cooker. The moral dilemma is clear, you as a viewer are questioning who is a dirty cop, who is not, or if everyone is to an extent, and there's a real sense of something-bad-is-about-to-do-down.

RIP to the potential this movie had. The last 45-minute stretch is extremely disappointing to say the least. Carnahan loses the tension as the movie becomes rather shouty and noisy instead, the story no longer holds your interest because these characters aren't interesting enough to warrant all the twists, and above all, the visuals get murkier and uglier as the film goes on. You can forgive some of it initially because we're mostly stuck in a dingy house on a quiet street at night, but the final act oscillates between disgustingly dark and entirely incomprehensible. Cinematographer Juan Miguel Azpiroz, editor Kevin Hale, Carnahan and the colourist's combined efforts are inadequate considering the talent in front of the camera and some neat practical stunts and fisticuffs that we'd be able to appreciate if the filmmaking choices weren't so chaotic. This is supposedly the most exciting section, but all you want to do is look away from the screen.

Putting the final nail in the coffin is the dreadful and unsightly final scene with an equally unsightly closing shot. There's very little to remember and even less to mull over once the credits start rolling. All that is left is a thriller that was moderately cool at first, but ultimately turned out to be a fumble that won't have much of a lasting impact. If a rip-roaring success is what you're yearning for, you won't find one here.

Smileys: Premise, Ben Affleck

Frowneys: Colouring, ending, cinematography

"Numa, numa, hey" is how you greet detective Baptiste in Romanian.

2.5/5

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