‘The Rip’ is a taut police thriller led by real movie stars

When fearless leader Capt. Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) is gunned down mid-investigation, her tactical team—including her second-in-command Lt. Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) and her secret lover Det. Sgt. JD Byrne (Ben Affleck)—are placed under a microscope by the FBI, in case one of them was involved. Their unit is well-oiled, between the diligent, straight-laced Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), and the playful, impassioned pairing of Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno). They’re all questioned individually, but their interrogations (along with Byrne’s) are presented in the form of a delightful montage, as though they were answering in unison. However, Dumars is immediately separated from the group by the movie’s brisk visual aesthetic. His own questioning is behind closed doors, and Damon’s quiet conception of the characters places him at a cold remove from the group, especially when they gather to make merry outside the station near quitting time.

However, an alleged tip of a $150,000 drug money stash causes Dumars to suddenly yank his dedicated foursome to a house in a rundown neighborhood, where the only resident—a young woman named Desi (Sasha Calle)—claims not to know about the area’s alleged gang activity. It’s here that things quickly escalate: Hidden in the house’s walls, perhaps unbeknownst to Desi, lies as much as $20 million, and before long, the cops are inundated with landline phone calls, on which muffled voices tell them to steal their desired sum and walk away, lest they be eliminated. Before long, it starts to seem like this may have been their captain’s final case before she was killed.  

Carnahan playfully twists the story’s screws at every turn, raising the stakes in ways the characters are forced to reckon with in the moment. Complicating matters further is Dumars’ strange (albeit calculated) behavior, as he demands his unit’s phones so word about the cash doesn’t get out; he claims he doesn’t know who he can trust. But as the night slowly starts to go awry, and slips into violence courtesy of villains hidden outside the house and off-screen, the extended standoff becomes a morality play of sorts, resting on what each character is willing to do when faced with the haul of a lifetime.

Steven Yeun as Detective Mike Ro and Teyana Taylor as Detective Numa Baptiste.

Warrick Page/Netflix

The answers to this conundrum end up rather straightforward for such a complex setup, but until they’re revealed, The Rip remains a heart-pounding piece of junk food cinema. Its booming music sound designs roar through darkened spaces, setting your teeth on edge, as its Kevlar-wearing antiheroes veer between seemingly trustworthy and possibly corrupt. Everyone has their own agenda, but no one’s quite sure what it is, making it hard for each character to trust anyone else. Making things doubly intriguing is the fact that Yeun’s character, Ro, seems like so much of a straight shooter that he’s overwhelmed by Dumars’ and Byrne’s increasingly heated rivalry, as the men who were closest to the late Velez, in their respective professional and personal capacities. For a brief period, Yeun embodies the audience’s default, disoriented point of view, though this too is an idea worth keeping an eye on.

The movie’s threads don’t always come together—for instance, Byrne’s romantic involvement with Velez, or that he has a brother in the FBI (Scott Adkins), are neither here nor there—and many of its twists seem obvious beyond a point. However, what keeps it afloat (and then some) is Carnahan’s deviously fun filmmaking. His dedication to using light sources in wonderfully expressionistic ways makes it a treat to look at; street lights pouring in through the windows of moving vehicles are practically blinding flashes, and a nearby porch light mysteriously blinking in the distance may as well echo heart palpitations as the characters carefully investigate.

Steven Yeun as Detective Mike Ro and Sasha Calle as Desi in "The Rip."

Claire Folger/Netflix

It also helps that Carnahan has long been one of Hollywood action cinema’s most underrated directors of A-list performances, which depend much more on their actors’ likability and familiar personalities than their verisimilitude. The script is the kind that may have fallen flat in anyone else’s hands, but Carnahan’s control of atmosphere—whether dust, shadow, or occasionally, flame—creates an inviting texture. With best friends and long-time creative partners Damon and Affleck at the forefront, each exchange of heated dialogue rests somewhere between naturalistic and emphatic. An old fashioned film needs old fashioned movie stars, which is why The Rip ultimately works.