The Rip: Quite disappointing

The Rip (2026) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and gobs o' profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.25.26

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have appeared together in more than a dozen films, since their small supporting roles in 1992’s School Ties. 

 

After climbing into an attic that is suspiciously clean and empty, narcotics cops J.D.
(Ben Affleck, left) and Dane (Matt Damon) notice that a back wall appears to be a
"false front."

They most often have been part of an ensemble cast, or one has starred while the other took a smaller supporting role, as in 2023’s Air. Learning that they’d share equal starring roles in a crime thriller helmed by action director Joe Carnahan therefore sounded promising … although his résumé is wildly uneven, to say the least. Hits such as Narc and The A-Team share space with junk such as Battle Ready and Shadow Force.

Carnahan and co-scripter Michael McGrale clearly borrowed a note from Howard Hawks’ 1959 classic, Rio Bravo — remade, in an urban setting, by John Carpenter in 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13 — and that also seemed like good news.

 

Alas, all that potential is sabotaged by the most relentless barrage of F-bombs I’ve ever endured in a mainstream film. Every character succumbs to this nonsense, at times unleashing a torrent within a single sentence. It’s inane, distracting and a glaring example of uninspired screenwriting. We barely get a sense of these people as individuals, because they’re little more than profanity-spewing caricatures.

 

Ahem.

 

Things begin viciously, as Miami-Dade Police Capt. Jackie Valez (Lina Esco) is brutally murdered, late at night, by two masked thugs … but not before she sends a text. To somebody.

 

In the aftermath, the members of her special unit — the Tactical Narcotics Team — are grilled by higher-ups who’ve heard rumors of crooked cops robbing drug houses. These silly interrogations don’t get the story off to a good start, since both Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon) — Valez’s second in command — and Detective Sgt. J.D. Byrne (Affleck), along with the visiting Feds, lose their tempers in twin displays of unrestrained overacting.

 

As an added wrinkle, one of the Feds — Del (Scott Adkins) — is J.D.’s brother.

 

The team later regroups to assess the situation; the other members are Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno). The latter handles their drug- and cash-sniffing beagle, Wilbur. DEA colleague Matty Nix (Kyle Chandler) drops by briefly to hassle them; it’s difficult to tell if it’s good-natured ribbing, or genuine suspicion.

 

In a nod to Robert Mitchum’s character in 1955’s Night of the Hunter, Dane has two sets of letters tattooed on his hands: AWTGG and WAAAWB.

On Swift Horses: More of a slow trot

On Swift Horses (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for nudity, sexual content and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.27.25

Although director Daniel Minahan draws achingly persuasive performances from the five core characters in this bittersweet melodrama, it’s hard to be satisfied with a story that concludes as this one does.

 

Lee (Will Poulter, left), his bride-to-be Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and his brother
Julius (Jacob Elordi) anticipate an upcoming move to California ... but nothing will
work out as planned.

Bryce Kass’ script captures the melancholy tone of Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, but film can’t replicate the author’s poetic prose. Absent that — and given that it’s blindingly obvious that we’re about to spend two hours with hopelessly miserable people — this film needs to be more than a mere actor’s showcase.

That said, Minahan and Kass deserve credit for treating gender issues and uncertainty with the same respect and sensitivity that highlight Pufahl’s book.

 

Events begin in the mid-1950s, as brothers Lee (Will Poulter) and Julius (Jacob Elordi) have returned from Korean War service. They gather in the small-town Kansas house that Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) inherited when her mother died. Lee, having long been sweet on Muriel, proposes; she accepts.

 

The long-standing plan — driven by Lee — is that the three of them will move to San Diego, get jobs, and make enough money to eventually buy a house; Julius will be welcome in a second bedroom.

 

However...

 

As this sequence unfolds, the glances that pass between Muriel and Julius are laden with unspoken intensity: hungry, yearning and forlorn. Edgar-Jones and Elordi’s body movements are flirty; the air drips with sexual tension. The snap assumption, at this early stage, is that Muriel will be torn between the two of them.

 

But no; things aren’t that simple. For starters, Julius is gay ... but perhaps not entirely. He’s also much too free-spirited for such a conventional life; he’s a thief and card cheat — which Lee has long known — and thus heads to what he imagines will be a more exciting time in Las Vegas.

 

Yes, this is another story that decisively punctures the surface “wholesomeness” that many people naïvely assume the 1950s represented. Much of what follows takes place within all aspects of the decade’s closeted gay community.

The Flash: Merely trots

The Flash (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action violence, profanity and partial nudity

Available via: Movie theater

By Derrick Bang

We’ve understood the dangers of messing with the past, ever since the 1952 publication of Ray Bradbury’s classic short story, “A Sound of Thunder.”

 

With Batman (Michael Keaton) piloting his Batplane, Barry Allen and his younger self
(both Ezra Miller) ponder how to save the alternate universe that The Flash
unintentionally screwed up.

We even have a name for it: the “Butterfly Effect” (actually coined in 1972 by meteorologist Edward Lorenz, to explain how small changes in one place can produce large differences elsewhere, via chaos theory … but sci-fi fans subsequently made the phrase their own).

Apparently Barry Allen never read Bradbury’s story, nor does he heed the sage advice of Bruce Wayne. With the rashness of those who believe they somehow can circumvent established universal order, Barry…

 

…but wait. That’s getting ahead of things.

 

Director Andy Muschietti’s new entry in the big-screen DC Superhero Universe opens with a bang, as The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Batman (Ben Affleck) scramble to avert a man-made catastrophe, while being aided remotely by the latter’s capable butler, Alfred (Jeremy Irons). This action-packed prologue almost concludes in heartbreak and tears, until a last-minute save by another familiar DCU warrior.

 

Then, once Flash resumes his civilian identity of police forensic scientist Barry Allen, he’s heartbroken to watch as his incarcerated father (Ron Livingston) loses his final chance to prove that he didn’t kill his wife (Maribel Verdú), back when Barry was just a young boy … a crime for which the adult Barry knows his father has been unjustly accused.

 

But can’t prove it.

 

When he suddenly realizes that he can run fast enough to enter a “time bubble” that reveals all past events, Barry recklessly changes what he believes is the trivial event which will alter that long-ago outcome for both his parents.

 

Sigh. So foolish…

 

At first blush, Christina Hodson and Joby Harold’s script adds a welcome dollop of Marvel Universe-style humor to what has been a string of dour, grimly violent DCU entries. Barry, Bruce and Alfred exchange dry asides during the aforementioned prologue, and there’s a strong sense of fun in The Flash’s quick-witted rescue of the many infants in a hospital Newborn Nursery unit.

 

It’s clever, as well — and a great ongoing gag — that the all-too-human Barry must eat voraciously, and constantly, in order to replenish the body fuel expended by his pell-mell dashes. (This guy definitely needs to rely on his wrist watch calorie counter.)

 

But I’m dismayed by the scripters’ decision to make Barry an insecure, stammering, tongue-tied dweeb with zero social skills. He’s embarrassing, particularly because Miller plays those characteristics so persuasively. I can’t imagine why his fellow Justice League members put up with him.