The Rip

The bromance continues.  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck team up yet again for THE RIP, released on Netflix a few weeks back. I hadn't heard of it until a day or two before its release.  It did not go to theaters.  Maybe the streaming behemoth felt it wasn't even worth the trouble.  Is there still an audience for cop dramas with middle agers as protagonists? Sure, but they are among the others who can't believe people still go to theaters.   Don't get me started.  But, for this movie, it doesn't matter.

Damon plays Lt. Dane Dumars.  Affleck is Detective Sergeant JD Byrne.  They are part of the Tactical Narcotics team in Miami.  Their Captain is killed; Internal Affairs and the FBI - one of whom is Byrne's brother, Del (Scott Adkins) - believe it was an inside job.  In line with ongoing rumors that several dirty cops pocket the drug money they confiscate in house raids. 

It all unfolds over one eventful night.  Dumars gets a tip that a house in Hialeah (not at all convincingly recreated in this movie) may of interest. The team will discover twenty mil in the attic.  Desi (Sasha Calle), whose deceased grandmother was the homeowner, claims she doesn't know how it got there.  Dumars refuses to tell his higher ups about the discovery, and  begins acting suspiciously.  Is he corrupt? In cahoots with others to score a "rip"?  Can anyone trust anyone?

See the movie if you like.  Director Joe Carnahan's script is heavy on exposition and contrivances.  Complex, but thoroughly elucidated.  Even Damon admitted "....it wouldn't be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phone while they're watching." Yup, sums it up.  THE RIP is a streaming programmer designed to be watched from the couch while you're half asleep and/or distracted.  I caught it on a Friday night after a very long week and it was just the sort of undemanding junk I fancied. 

It is involving and fun to watch.  Carnahan has fashioned better action scenes in the past but his work here is just fine.  Chases and shootouts (despite the damned CGI) are decent.  Kevin Hale's editing keeps the pace brisk enough.  But the reason to watch is of course for the boys.  Their chemistry is effortless.  They have a heart to heart in a restroom early in the film filled with cliched dialogue but they're so enjoyable to watch you don't care.  Both took the gig seriously.  Never look embarrassed or merely phoning it in.  Even if they were.