This gripping action thriller makes the most of Matt Damon’s and Ben Affleck’s history together, to provide a satisfyingly paranoid thriller that genuinely keeps you guessing about who you can trust.

Premise: After their captain is murdered, the members of Miami-Dade Police Department’s Tactical Narcotics Team find themselves under suspicion from the FBI, who are investigating rumours that crooked cops are robbing drug houses for cash. Police Lieutenant Dane Dumars’ (Matt Damon) and Sergeant J.D. Byrne’s (Ben Affleck) determination to find their captain’s killer leads their team to follow up on a tip about a potential cash house, but when they find far more money than they expected, each team member begins to question who they can really trust.

Review:

The Rip isn’t the type of film that’s trying to be something it isn’t - it wants to be an entertaining, paranoid action thriller that delivers some tension, some misdirection, and some action, and that’s exactly what it achieves. The characters are intentionally hardboiled cop architypes (so that you can’t easily guess who’s trustworthy and who isn’t), and the dialogue is equally stylised and world-weary. That said, there’s a version of this film that could have easily devolved into an uninspired cliche, but director Joe Carnahan and his cast elevate what (on paper, at least) could be seen as a very simple story.

Joe Carnahan has demonstrated a love for hard-bitten crime films, and although the last film of his that I really enjoyed (2022’s Boss Level) was more of an action-comedy, The Rip focuses predominantly on generating (and maintaining) a genuine sense of paranoia. The film quickly establishes (with the murder of the Tactical Narcotics Team’s captain) that being a cop is no protection in this movie, and then it cranks up the tension as pressure is applied both from within the team, and from without. The FBI (led by Scott Adkins‘ agent) suspect that the TNT has been compromised by crooked cops, while the team’s colleagues (including Nestor Carbonell‘s police major and Kyle Chandler‘s DEA agent) grow frustrated at the politics getting in the way of finding the captain’s murderers. Then, when the TNT discover far more money than they were expecting during the search of house that they were tipped off about, their paranoia goes through the roof when they realise that both the drugs cartel and any corrupt cops will not want to see them walk away with this cash.

“…the main cast are all Oscar winners & nominees…”

The central team in The Rip is a tight knit one, played by a great cast. Matt Damon convinces as the lieutenant who reluctantly steps into the leadership role following the murder of their captain, while Ben Affleck gets the showier part as the team’s more volatile sergeant – but both actors leave enough ambiguity in their performances that audiences can never be certain which, if either of them, can truly be trusted. Whereas Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel kept Damon and Affleck apart for most of the film, The Rip uses their real-life, lifelong friendship as the basis for the bond between their characters, so that every exchanged look or unspoken moment conveys their characters’ shared history ... while also using any out-of-character behaviour to plant seeds of mistrust between them.

The same is true for the rest of the TNT – Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor and Catalina Sandino Moreno (who action fans may remember from last year’s Ballerina) are all Oscar nominated actors (as is Matt Damon*), which gives you an idea of how the cast is able to do so much with what could have been a fairly straightforward premise. And although Sasha Calle (who’s probably best known for her role as Supergirl in 2023’s The Flash) doesn’t get quite as much to do as the owner of the house the TNT is searching, she still brings her character to life in ways that keep the audience guessing in relation to how much she actually knows about what’s going on.

“…this twisty-turny, old fashioned, 70s-style cop thriller is great fun…”

As with any paranoid thriller, the first two acts are arguably the film’s strongest, as it loses some of its tension once the mysteries are revealed in the final act – but even then, I have to say that the finale still had a few interesting developments that I did not see coming. Overall, this twisty-turny, old fashioned, 70s-style cop thriller is great fun, and an enjoyable return to Joe Carnahan’s crime noir roots.

* Note: Ben Affleck, of course, won two Oscars, but for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, rather than for acting.