Welcome to UNMISSABLE, the Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s guide to the one thing you need to watch today. Whether it’s the most gripping streaming show, the most hilarious comedy, the movie which you’ll never forget, or the deliciously catty reality TV meltdown, we bring you the real must-see of the day—every day.
The Boston bros are back in The Rip, a knockabout Netflix feature (January 16) that reunites Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for an action-mystery saga that’s equal parts Agatha Christie whodunit, Assault on Precinct 13 siege extravaganza, and corrupt-cop drama in the spirit of writer/director Joe Carnahan’s 2002 gem Narc.
As Miami police officers caught in a prickly predicament that puts them at odds with each other and their fellow comrades (along with other nefarious elements), the Oscar-winning best buds get shady, angry, and altogether hostile. Their love-hate dynamic supercharges an all-star film (“inspired by true events”) that routinely speeds ahead of its audience, demanding they keep up.
A rugged affair that’s canny and concussive enough to compensate for a somewhat deflating ending, it proves that its headliners remain cinema’s preeminent BFF duo.
On a dark Florida night, Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) is hunted by two masked assailants. Before they finish her off with a point-blank shotgun blast, she manages to send a text and toss her phone in the water.
A short time later, her squadron—the amusingly acronym’ed Tactical and Narcotics Team (TNT)—is questioned by federal agent Del Byrne (Scott Adkins) about their potential involvement in their commander’s death. The thinking being that since a recent homicide division was outed as a nest of corruption, they might also be homicidally rogue.
This doesn’t please detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yuen), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno). And it righteously pisses off Detective Sergeant JD Byrne (Affleck), who disrespectfully smokes during his interview, snaps at questions, and eventually comes to blows with Del—a belligerent turn of events made all the funnier by the revelation that the two combatants are brothers.
These officers now work under Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon), JD’s close friend. And in the aftermath of this inquisition, he informs the team that he’s received an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip that there’s illegal money stashed at a nearby residence.
Despite it being Friday afternoon and no offer of overtime pay, he’s going to check it out. His mates reluctantly join him and, at the house, they encounter Desi (Sasha Calle), a young woman who claims that the place was her recently deceased grandmother’s, and who agrees to let TNT enter the premises—at which point their cash-sniffing dog Wilbur leads them to an attic that’s as spic-and-span clean and empty as the rest of the domicile is dirty and cluttered.
With a little additional snooping, they discover the cause of Wilbur’s incessant barking: Behind a wall are numerous buckets filled with cash that initial estimates indicate total just over $20 million.
This is a problem for numerous reasons, all of which Carnahan’s script lays out with a rapidity that generates bewildering urgency.
Dane orders his subordinates to move the money to the garage (because its walls will provide extra protection against gunfire) and confiscates all their phones (out of adherence to protocol, he says, rather than distrust).
This kicks The Rip into high gear while elucidating that Damon’s protagonist thinks multiple bad scenarios are now in play: The cartel (whose money this clearly is) could come knocking at any moment. The tip might be part of a plot to set them up by forces intent on stealing the loot. And one of them, enticed by the promise of immense wealth, may get the idea to turn traitor and orchestrate an impromptu heist.
This multifaceted mess becomes clear as TNT starts taking precautions against possible threats, and the fact that DEA agent Matty Nix (Kyle Chandler) previously said they all look “dirty” and “corrupt” looms large, suggesting that one of them may be devising a devious double-cross.
As in Narc, the boys in blue aren’t above bending (or breaking) the law to get what they want, and Carnahan sticks intensely to his subjects, his camera up-close-and-personal—especially during hectic chases, skirmishes, and moments of tension—in order to tap into their frenzied headspace and rough-and-tumble physicality.
With minimal flash but a whole lot of brawn, Carnahan embeds himself (and us) in these confined quarters, hinting at the multiple ways that these supposedly tight-knit men and women could be scheming to snatch and grab the lucrative bounty and leave their compatriots behind—and possibly dead.
At the center of this wired madness are Damon and Affleck’s Dane and JD, the latter of whom gradually begins to suspect that maybe the former isn’t being as forthright as he should be—not least of which because he won’t inform their superiors about their find and appears to know more than he’s letting on.
The actors’ camaraderie is so natural and strong that it serves as a bedrock foundation for their subsequent wariness and antagonism. Both are amplified by various details (including Damon’s hand tattoos and iPhone lock screen photo of a young boy, and Affleck’s not-so-secret bond with Jackie), which imply that each could be the potential mastermind pulling the strings.
In smaller but well-drawn parts, the charismatic Yeun, Taylor, and Moreno are equally sketchy—all sidewise glances, dubious pronouncements, and clandestine actions—further underscoring the film’s suspenseful portrait of money as the great temptation and root of all treachery.
The Rip is a Murder on the Orient Express-style guessing game reconfigured into a crooked-cop bruiser that wastes little energy holding viewers’ hands, expecting them to piece together its various clues as it blazes forward into edgy confrontations and nerve-rattling firefights.
Only in its closing passages does Carnahan’s taut film somewhat slacken, dropping a couple of bombshells that aren’t as startling as intended and untangling its dilemmas with easy resolutions.
Even if the finale is a tad underwhelming, however, the writer/director delivers a coda whose cheesiness is made all the more entertaining by the real-life relationship of its marquee headliners.
So perfectly corny that it almost feels designed to inspire memes, this conclusion puts a feel-good button on the proceedings that, regardless of its inaptness, is likely to plant a smile on the face of anyone with a soft spot for the continuing Damon-Affleck partnership—an enterprise that, on the basis of this sturdy genre effort, shows no signs of losing steam.
