Rip, The (2026) Review

“The Rip” Poster

Director: Joe Carnahan
Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, Kyle Chandler, Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Scott Adkins, Jose Pablo Cantillo
Running Time: 113 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

I recently read an article about the surge in AI generated music beginning to infiltrate streaming platforms, with one service reporting that towards the end of 2025, the number of AI generated songs had risen to represent 34% of the total number of uploads. The trend has seen an uptick in listeners becoming attuned to if a track is AI or not, with elements like bland lyrics, vocals that never stray from the melody, or similarly fail to go all out on the final chorus all acting as telltale signs the artist they’re listening to doesn’t exist. What does any of this have to do with The Rip, the latest action thriller from director Joe Carnahan?

Well, while watching it I was reminded of the article, only rather than it being the telltale signs of a track being made by AI, it got me thinking what are the telltale signs that give away a Netflix movie? Different form of expression, but same principle. Considering most of my Netflix movie consumption tends to lean towards the action genre, during the 2020’s there’s been a couple of giveaway signs that have emerged. You may well say that the biggest giveaway is that you’d have to be logged into Netflix to be watching a Netflix movie in the first place, which is true, however call it misplaced confidence or mild delusion – I feel confident I could spot a Netflix action movie even if I went in unaware of the platforms involvement.

First up, start off with an action sequence. Why? Whatever someone chooses to watch on Netflix is competing against literally 100s of other shows and movies, all in a curated algorithm to appeal to the viewers tastes – if you don’t hook them in the first 5 minutes, expect them to clock out. If you’re selling an action movie, it’s best to deliver on some action straight out of the gates, increasing the chances of them continuing to watch. Second, expect the dialogue to awkwardly shoehorn in at least a couple of condescending exposition dumps where characters spell out exactly what’s happening, as if the audience is too dumb to understand. Chances are they’re not, but Netflix knows many of its viewers will be flicking between screens or doing something else at the same time – the so called ‘second screen’ syndrome – so feel it’s important to include regular recaps for those who aren’t giving the movie their full attention.

Both of these elements can be seen in the likes of 2023’s Heart of Stone and 2025’s Havoc, with the former showing how badly it can be done, and the latter showing that it’s still possible to work within such parameters and deliver an entertaining final product. The Rip though feels like the most Netflix movie I’ve seen to date, for better or worse. Opening with the captain of the Tactical Narcotics Team (played by Lina Esco – Porthole) frantically driving to reach the unknown person on the other end of the call she’s on, once on foot she’s confronted by a pair of balaclava wearing, pump action shotgun wielding assailants. The ensuing gunfight ensures she never makes it to her rendezvous, with the team she leaves behind determined to get to the bottom of who killed her. The problem is, it may be one of their own who pulled the trigger.

It delivers the required action opening, and does so effectively. Indeed while Netflix is known to mandate action scene openings for any of its genre outings, it’s a trope that’s been around far longer than any streaming service (just check out the opening sequence of practically ever James Bond movie ever made!), with only the reasons why the story is structured in such a way having changed. Set in Miami, the lieutenant of the team, played by Matt Damon (The Great Wall), receives a tip about a cartel house being used to stash large sums of cash. Despite it being after hours, he rounds up the team to go and check it out, only to find the total far exceeds what the tip had suggested. With a potential double agent in their midst, mysterious calls giving them a countdown to leave the house before they all die, and night closing in, tensions soon start to fray and bullets begin to fly.

Inspired by a true story, Damon’s character is based on the experience of police officer Chris Casiano, who in 2016 executed a search warrant on a home that ended up having $24 million in cash stored behind a false wall in the attic. The Rip of the title refers to the confiscation of the cash in cop parlance, and it’s this scenario which is transferred to the screen, with Carnahan directing the core of the narrative into classic crime thriller territory (working from his own script). A filmmaker comfortable working in both the crime (Narc, Copshop) and action (Boss Level, The A-Team) genres, while Carnahan has built up a lot of good will over the years, it’s hard to ignore the fact he’s coming off the back of the 2025 clunkers Shadow Force and Not Without Hope. Working in his favour though is pulling off the coup de grace of reuniting Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (The Accountant) as joint leads.

While the pair have occasionally shared the screen together in the 21^st century (the Jay and Silent Bob movies and Jersey Girl), to see the last time they were co-leads you have to go as far back as 1999’s Dogma. Here they prove they’ve lost none of their onscreen chemistry, with Affleck playing one of the detectives on Damon’s team, the latter being chosen for the promotion that Affleck’s character was also in line for. The bubbling friction between the pair serve to make the first half of The Rip an effective exercise in tension building, with the team couped up in the house at the end of an unoccupied cul-de-sac. There’s a sense of impending doom that almost has an Assault of Precinct 13 vibe, as the team know they can’t leave the cash without counting it, but at the same time are aware the bad guys already know they’re there, with the mysterious calls giving them a countdown to leave.

Once the countdown expires though The Rip gradually begins to lose steam, the reason being the same one why I started this review with a thinly disguised Netflix tirade. As the narrative turns its attention to revealing the double agent, the streaming movie ‘tick boxes’ begin to rear their head in the worst way possible. One of the first rules of filmmaking is “show don’t tell”, however the first sign you’re watching a Netflix film tends to be when that rule gets inverted, to the point that it becomes “tell, then show, then tell again.” The gritty dialogue drops away, painfully replaced by characters explaining to each other exactly what’s happening onscreen. By the time the leads find themselves in the back of an armoured truck with Steven Yuen (Burning) and Kyle Chandler (Game Night), what should be an edge of seat scene instead feels like the audio description has been switched on for those with vision impairment.

Until this point, much like in Havoc, it’d been largely forgivable, limited to an early interrogation scene that’s used a little too obviously to give the backstory on the team, and being given constant reminders that Affleck was in a relationship with the murdered captain. However the truck dialogue ripped me completely out of the movie (pun intended). Unfortunately it also acts as the segue into the finale, which almost feels like it’s had script pages inserted from a different writer all together, no more so than in a ham-fisted exchange between Damon and Sasha Calle (The Flash), where she tears up at the reveal that Damon’s character lost his son to cancer. Considering there’s no emotional connection between the pair (Calle plays the resident of the house with the cash) it ends up coming across as laughably absurd, and would have been far more believable if they’d spent more than 20 minutes together.

A victim of my own expectations perhaps, but I confess I’d also expected The Rip to head in a darker direction than it did, with some of the explanations given for scenarios where it appeared certain characters where the bad guys, but actually weren’t, failing to resonate. But, we do get Scott Adkins playing Ben Affleck’s brother! An actor who in the movie Grimsby was referred to as the “Ukrainian Ben Affleck”, while he doesn’t get to show any of his trademark moves here, for some seeing the former Batman play the sibling of the guy who many action fans wanted to be Batman may be enough! Not me though.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10