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.