‘The Rip’ Review – Everybody’s Got A Price
This is one of those movies practically begging to be reviewed. I kept hearing about The Rip – not from friends over coffee or anything, but from headlines that kept materializing in my feed like little digital nudges. Before long, that familiar “everyone’s watching this” glow Netflix conjures out of thin air started to take hold.
Soon, it felt like the film was following me around the internet, tapping me on the shoulder until I finally gave in. And, like an impulse buy you justify on the walk to the car, it turned out to be a warm, twisty surprise that hooked me far more than I expected. The movie doesn’t bother easing you in; it kicks the door open with guns already blazing.
It starts with a deal going sideways so fast you barely have time to register who’s who before a cop ends up dead, and the whole mess reeks of something far more tangled than bad luck. From there, the story tracks the fallout – people scrambling, Feds circling, alibis shifting – and the creeping realization that whatever detonated in those first chaotic minutes is only the visible edge of a much deeper rot.
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That trail leads narcotics officers Dane (Matt Damon) and Byrne (Ben Affleck) to a too‑quiet Miami house, where they find a Colombian woman with a record (Sasha Calle) and, hidden behind an upstairs wall, buckets upon buckets of dirty cash. The discovery sparks the usual fractures and paranoia among a crew of well‑armed, well‑connected cops who all have their own reasons for needing a little extra on the side.
Then come the cryptic phone calls, the unwelcome visitors, and the inevitable hail of bullets. It’s all staged with a nervy precision that suggests a director raised on Hitchcock’s sense of structure and slow‑burn tension, yet delivered with the muscular, adrenalized swagger of someone who occasionally channels Michael Bay. The difference is that Carnahan actually keeps a steady hand on the camera, which is a welcome bit of discipline amid the chaos.
It helps that Carnahan assembles a cast of actors who know exactly how to play flawed, cornered people – the kind who’ve lived in this genre before. Affleck and Damon are no strangers to action, and the former even worked with Carnahan on Smokin’ Aces exactly twenty years ago (hard to believe). Sasha Calle also feels primed for this outing after her turn as Supergirl, despite everything surrounding The Flash. She was solid there, but she’s genuinely good here, even while spending much of the film cuffed to a chair.
Then there is the matter of the twists, which Carnahan treats less like grenades and more like pressure valves. You can see some turns coming a mile away – the double‑backs, the shifting loyalties, the quiet sense that everyone’s sitting on one last dangerous secret – but the real pleasure is watching Carnahan guide you down the alley anyway. He isn’t trying to fool you; he’s trying to corner you, and when the reveal finally hits, it lands with the kind of cold certainty he’s been steering you toward from the start.
Carnahan’s not reinventing anything, but he spins the familiar beats fast enough to leave skid marks. Messy, muscular, and fully aware of its own grit, The Rip knows exactly what it is: a rough‑and‑ready Carnahan ’joint’ with just enough swagger to keep you hooked. You might think it’s just background noise, but before you know it, you realize it’s the kind of movie you start leaning into.
NEXT: ‘Drop’ Review — Fine Whining
The Rip
PROS
- Engagement factor
- Performances, especially Affleck, Calle, Damon, and Steve Yuen
CONS
- The real villain's identity is obvious
- Deceptively short running time padded by credits
