ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — “The Rip,” a new action crime thriller starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, was released on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 16. Read our review below.
“THE RIP” (2026, 112 min., directed by Joe Carnahan)
“The Rip” is not unlike a lot of procedural thrillers. It has guns, twists and crime-busting, like you would expect, plus other genre hallmarks, like an aggressively blue-green filter and Miami setting. What sets it apart is what makes it such a disappointment. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are in this movie, and they’re outright bad in it.
The film, written and directed by frequent action movie helmer Joe Carnahan, is about a group of Miami police detectives investigating a house where illicit money has allegedly been hidden. The team, led by Damon and filled out by Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor and Catalina Sandino Moreno, are also reeling from the recent murder of their police captain and troubled by rumors of corrupt cops stealing money from “rip” sites, like the one they have been assigned to.
All of the supporting actors in the flick are overqualified for the material they’re given. Taylor, who just won a Golden Globe for her performance in “One Battle After Another,” is a charismatic highlight, and it was nice to see Sasha Calle after her film debut in “The Flash.” Unfortunately, they are totally wasted in the movie. Taylor spends almost the entire runtime sitting in a garage counting stacks of bills, unaided by Carnahan’s half-baked attempts to inject “themes” into his script through a few lame comments about how much money they make and how tempting it would be to steal from “the rip.”
Damon and Affleck, meanwhile, are given the most to do, but go about it with a unique combination of self-seriousness and self-consciousness. Every line of dialogue they trade is unconvincing, but worse, Carnahan’s script has more exposition than a pulp sci-fi novel. Rather than having his detectives do some actual investigating, Carnahan moves his plot forward with a ludicrous amount of repetitive phone calls. Dumb use of smartphones is everywhere in “The Rip.” At one point, Damon and Affleck bust out their best Spanish to talk to a cartel boss over FaceTime, complete with an iPhone aspect ratio. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so contrived.
There are some twists and car chases in the final act of “The Rip,” but witnessing them requires making it through an hour of dull nonsense, and recommending you do that would be more immoral than a corrupt Miami detective. You can skip “The Rip.”
Rating: 2/5
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