I’ve always found it hard to distinguish between Joe Carnahan and Guy Ritchie, maybe because one director made “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and the other made “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane.” Who made which? Does it matter? Both were happily violent, high-caliber crime romps, though as is the case with “The Rip”—Mr. Carnahan’s latest, which stars old pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—there was more at stake than simply staying alive. Or making off with a big pile
I’ve always found it hard to distinguish between Joe Carnahan and Guy Ritchie, maybe because one director made “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and the other made “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane.” Who made which? Does it matter? Both were happily violent, high-caliber crime romps, though as is the case with “The Rip”—Mr. Carnahan’s latest, which stars old pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—there was more at stake than simply staying alive. Or making off with a big pile of cash. Though cash is always nice.
There’s also more on the line than usual for Messrs. Damon and Affleck, whose production company’s deal with Netflix reportedly includes performance bonuses for cast and crew, depending on how well the film succeeds. Given how little Netflix usually reveals about its viewership and accounting, we observers may never know anything—except that “The Rip” is a sturdily entertaining, hyper-kinetic avalanche of action propelled by equal parts bullets and f-bombs.
The two actors’ usual choice of location—as seen in Mr. Affleck’s “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone”; Mr. Damon’s performance in “The Departed”; their collaborative “Good Will Hunting”—had this viewer trying to figure out where in Boston the opening sequence was taking place. Turns out, it’s Miami Beach. There, a detective named Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) is murdered during the kind of rainstorm custom made for a police assassination. This brings in the FBI, whose agents proceed to grill the members of the TNT, or Tactical Narcotics Team, a posse of dubious characters played by an impressively pedigreed cast—Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”), Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno, “Ballerina”), Mike Ro (Steven Yeun, “Minari”), Lt. Dane Dumars (Mr. Damon) and Sgt. JD Byrne (Mr. Affleck). The reliable Kyle Chandler is the team’s tactical DEA connection, Matty Nix, and Sasha Calle is Desi, who is the subject of an anonymous tip—her home is the hiding place for an enormous stash of money, enough money to have even the most honest cop dreaming of Learjets, Lamborghinis and chaise longues on Lake Como.
Whose money is it? Everyone assumes it’s a drug-cartel cache; Desi says she was paid to know nothing, and seems to. But whom can you trust? The entire setup of “The Rip” is about internal-affairs investigations and the murder of a police captain, possibly by other cops. It is certainly one dubious cross-section of urban law enforcement: The feds already broke up the detectives’ former unit, the VCAT (Violent Criminal Apprehension Team) because of “widespread and rampant criminal corruption.” Byrne doesn’t deny it. And no one on the force seems stalwart enough to be beyond temptation.
But while “The Rip” isn’t exactly “The Usual Suspects,” the storyline revolves around questions of trust. Whom can you believe? Who’s lying, who’s not, and who can really resist the kind of windfall with which one might buy an island? Meanwhile, the audience is being thrown enough red herrings to be barking like seals.
Along with braggadocio, attitude, posturing and the kind of public servants one finds in action movies, Mr. Carnahan creates tension and atmosphere: The neighborhood around Desi’s house, our investigating officers discover, is a cul-de-sac lined with empty houses. Eerie. As one detective asks another, have you heard about drug cartels buying up entire neighborhoods to protect their operations? And yet, are the cars full of killers bearing down on our potentially complicit cops really South American mobsters? Or other cops? Or are there factions unaccounted for?
The Damon-Affleck team is so familiar it brings a certain comfort to a production in which Mr. Carnahan’s dialogue insists on forever jacking up the angst, his characters doubting the integrity of their colleagues and their own moral fortitude. They know what they should do. Honestly. But, at the same time, they’re looking at enough of a payoff to risk a few sleepless nights.
The Rip
Friday, Netflix
Mr. Anderson is the Journal’s TV critic.
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