Film Review: The Rip (2026): Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Star in a Tense Netflix Thriller With a Few Plot Holes
The Rip Review
The Rip (2026) Film Review, a movie directed by Joe Carnahan, written by Michael McGrale and Joe Carnahan and starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sasha Calle, Kyle Chandler, Scott Adkins, Daisuke Tsuji, Nestor Carbonell, Lina Esco, Alex Hernandez, Cliff Chamberlain, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Marco Morales, Sal Lopez and Angel Rosario Jr.
The Rip starts out with enough crackling tension to keep viewers glued to their seats for the duration of the picture, but, unfortunately, it ends with a bit of a whimper. That’s a shame because so much of this movie is so good that it will certainly be a huge hit for Netflix. If it had a bit more of an edge and a little less predictability, director Joe Carnahan’s movie could have gone all the way as a masterclass in the action genre. Instead, it ends up being just a passable way to spend a couple of hours, but little more than that. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are “crooked cop hunting” in this new thriller about a discovery in a home that causes a bunch of Miami police officers to question their colleagues’ motives and decide, within themselves, what, exactly, is worth taking the ultimate risk for?
Damon portrays Lieutenant Dane who is suffering from the loss of his young son. Affleck serves as the unpredictable Detective Sergeant J.D. These two characters’ loyalty to their job and to one another will be tested and then some upon the discovery of millions of dollars which are bagged up and precisely counted and found in orange paint pails in a the back of a room within a house occupied by a seemingly unknowing inhabitant. The plot thickens when a phone call is received that gives these cops a mere thirty minutes to get out of the home or else all hell is promised to break loose. Since this is an action movie, you can expect the scenes to erupt into wild gunfire, but some people may have been hoping for more complexity in the story line a la 1998’s terrific cash-finding movie, A Simple Plan.
This film opens with the killing of a key female character in the story line. There’s little suspense as to who killed her once we meet the cast of assembled characters. This picture flirts with the idea of making one of our heroic leading men into a potential culprit, but those who know the stars’ status in Hollywood will quickly figure out that they’re not going to be portrayed as villains in a big budget picture like this.
We meet a slew of characters who work on the police team. Teyana Taylor of One Battle After Another is solid as Detective Numa while the usually reliable Steven Yeun plays one Detective Mike who seems too good to be true. Rounding out the cast of characters is the terrific Kyle Chandler of Anniversary as a DEA Agent named Mateo. For nearly two thirds of the movie, characters go back and forth with dialogue, a lot of it about the logistics of how the money should be handled. One could get whiplash from the complexity of it all, but the problem is it’s not really as complicated as it all seems on the surface. Treasure of the Sierra Madre, this is not. It’s an enjoyable cop movie premise, to be sure, but all the cast members are way overqualified to be appearing in this type of movie at this point in their distinguished careers.
That being said, The Rip has moments of sheer intensity that are spot on in terms of creating suspense and making the viewer second guess what is really going on. There’s one character who is clearly up to no good right from the moment he appears on-screen and another one whose motives you’ll constantly be questioning. Damon and Affleck, at times, come across as a bit shady, but I never quite bought that they could be potentially suspicious characters who wouldn’t do the right thing – legally or morally speaking. While the characters do make some questionable judgments, the movie highlights a few plot holes with plenty of action that will make viewers forget that some of this isn’t really making a whole lot of sense in the grand scheme of things.
Damon and Affleck are equally sufficient in terms of the quality of their performances here. Chandler steals the spotlight when the script allows him to while Yeun’s role feels a bit thankless, to be honest. His role is written without much thought as to making him three-dimensional. His character serves a purpose, but just barely. Teyana Taylor could have done this part in her sleep, without a doubt. Had the script been tightened up a bit, there could have been more here than just an intense cop thriller. As it plays now, it’s an entertaining police story that has actors who need to go back to the Oscar-worthy material they are known best for immediately.
People usually ask if you liked a movie after seeing it and, yes, The Rip is a reliable, fast-paced thriller. Will it win any awards? No. Will you remember it next week? Not at all. Was it enjoyable as the plot was unfolding? Yes! As Damon and Affleck go through their paces here, some viewers should be keeping a scorecard to see if the person they think is no-good is actually a villain here. The Rip doesn’t always offer clear-cut answers as to who the good guys and the bad guys are where the fundamentals regarding the distribution of the money is concerned, but a pathetic murderer is always just that. The Rip has fun biting into a premise that will keep you in your seat for its nearly two-hour running time.
Rating: 7/10
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