The Rip - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

THRILLERS don’t come much more muscular than The Rip, a blisteringly intense cop drama that successfully reunites Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for the 17th time (in a collaborative capacity).

Based on the true story of Chris Casiano, a real Miami cop who discovered a massive sum of money stashed in a house while serving as head of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Tactical Narcotics Team, the film takes that as its starting point before then broadening its scope to a tale of police corruption, murder and betrayal.

Damon plays Lieutenant Dane Dumars, a career veteran struggling to come to terms with the loss of his 10-year-old son to cancer, who is tasked with solving the murder of the squad’s captain, while also acting on a tip-off about a huge stash of Cartel money hidden in a safehouse.

Affleck plays his friend and colleague, Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne, who becomes increasingly suspicious of Dumars’ erratic behaviour once the stash is discovered (running to a rip in excess of $20 million). Could it be that Dumars is planning to ‘jack’ it for himself.

And what of the team - which also includes Oscar-tipped Teyana Taylor and Oscar nominees Steven Yeun and Catalina Sandino Moreno - supporting them? Can they be trusted? Likewise, the young woman living in the house (Sasha Calle), who seems to know more than she’s letting on about the owners of the stash.

For the most part, Joe Carnahan’s film plays out like a tense potboiler, as suspicion and division runs riot among the unit as they count the money and prepare for a threatened assault by its owners. There’s a palpable sense of dread and distrust that enables the talented cast to genuinely act, rather than just posture or go hung-ho.

In that sense, the film shares more in common with Carnahan’s earlier efforts as a filmmaker (most notably Narc), while also being inspired by the likes of hard-boiled 70s thrillers such as Assault on Precinct 13 mixed with the 90s ethic of Michael Mann’s seminal Heat.

Most characters also have an added emotional hook, whether simply being a single mother trying to cope or, in Affleck’s case, the former lover of the murdered captain, who is juggling feelings of revenge and grief.

The most affecting of these, however, is Damon’s arc as a grieving dad - something the film allows room to delve into a bit further during the climax, and which is inspired by Casiano’s real-life son, Jake William Casiano, who died of leukemia in 2021. The film is dedicated to Jake - and it feels sensitively handled.

For a film that exhibits such a lot of machismo throughout, the emotional kick is all the more surprising and affecting.

But then Damon and Affleck have long been a formidable partnership (they also produce via their Artists Equity production house), and their chemistry here displays both an easygoing shorthand as well as an edgy volatility that plays well amid the uncertainty and unpredictability that’s rife within the story.

Hence, when the big set piece action moments arrive, you’re invested enough to care, while also giving some of the more generic elements of the chases, fist fights shootouts the benefit of the doubt.

The Rip is a big, bold, highly successful cop thriller that arguably deserved a stint on the big screen (where it would have thrived just a few years ago). It’s everything you could have hoped for from this type of genre, a glorious throwback to the type of films you wish they would make more of.

Interesting trivia: In the real situation involving the discovery of the stash, it took 42 hours to count the cash. And the film’s final tally, of $20,650,480, is the same amount Chris Casiano discovered in real life.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 1hr 52mins