The Rip (2026)
Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Premise: A group of Miami police officers discover a huge stash of cash during a drug raid. The officers begin to distrust each other as the house receives anonymous threatening phone calls.
What Works: The Rip is a suspenseful story of temptation and integrity. When a group of police officers discover a huge stash of drug money, temptation takes its toll on the team and there is increasing evidence that one of the officers is dirty and possibly working for a cartel. The Rip benefits from a great deal of detail as a police procedural and as a character study. The early scenes effectively establish the central characters and their relationships, in particular the lieutenant leading the raid and the sergeant who is second in command, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, respectively. The filmmakers also establish police protocol, working the exposition into the storytelling organically, and the lieutenant breaks that protocol, claiming to be paranoid about the amount of cash they have discovered. The film efficiently and ingeniously juggles the viewer’s suspicions about the officers. While they count the money, it becomes clear that someone else is coming for it. The inside threat and the outside threat are entwined, creating an escalating tension. The house is located in a cul-de-sac and the layout of the neighborhood gives the impression that they are trapped. The filmmakers set the mood and use lighting very well, especially a sequence in which the neighbors’ houselights blink in Morse code.
What Doesn’t: The Rip is not a shoot-’em-up film. It does have action but it’s more about suspense. That’s not a fault of The Rip but viewers expecting something like the Jason Bourne movies should know this going in. The real conflict of The Rip is about corruption. Several of these police officers are economically struggling and taking just a piece of the seizure would make their lives easier. The end of the film undercuts the ethical tension at the center of the story. It’s not clear if the team members were really tempted by the cash. If not, that cheats and cheapens the viewer’s emotional investment in the story. Most of The Rip is about the team working as a unit but in the end the officers are divided by gender. The men get to participate in the climax while the female characters are left behind. Aside from the weirdly sexist gender optics, this also abandons the solidarity of the team which had been the main focus of the story.
Disc extras: Available on Netflix.
Bottom Line:The Rip is an exceptional thriller. The very end of the picture is a little wobbly but throughout it is a tense, intelligent, and well-crafted story of corruption.
Episode: #1089 (March 1, 2026)