Joe Carnahan is fully back in his gritty cop mode here,. The movie wastes no time setting up a bad situation and then keeps tightening the screws. A cop is murdered, everyone is a suspect, and you can feel the paranoia creeping into every conversation. It is not trying to reinvent the genre, it is leaning into it and doing the basics really well. Suspicion, pressure, bad choices stacking on top of each other, and the sense that whatever plan they make is already going sideways.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck playing tired Miami cops is honestly kind of perfect casting at this point in their careers. They do not try to act young or invincible. They look like guys who have been doing this job too long and have the emotional dents to prove it. Damon in particular sells that worn-down leadership vibe, the kind of guy who keeps telling himself he can still hold the line even when everything around him is bending. Affleck gets to be more blunt and reactive, the guy who acts first and questions motives later, which works nicely against Damon’s more calculating energy.
The hook is simple and effective. They find way more money than they were supposed to. Not a little extra, but life-changing, cartel-angering, everybody-starts-lying level money. Once that happens, the movie becomes more about survival, both physical and moral. Who called in the tip, who already knows, and who is about to show up with guns. That ticking clock gives the whole middle stretch real momentum, and it keeps you guessing about who is dirty and who is just scared.
The supporting cast is doing solid work too. Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Catalina Sandino Moreno all feel like real people stuck in a nightmare rather than disposable side characters. Sasha Calle as the young woman in the house is especially good. Her fear never feels melodramatic, it feels practical and confused, like someone realizing way too late that being adjacent to crime can still get you killed. She adds a lot to the tension without needing big speeches.
Carnahan’s direction has that brash, punchy feel he is known for. It is not subtle, but it is confident. Scenes are staged so you always understand who is where and why that matters, which is something a lot of modern action movies weirdly struggle with. The house itself becomes part of the suspense, just a normal suburban place that starts to feel more and more like a trap the longer everyone stays inside it. Small details like that go a long way in selling the danger.
The movie is long, and you do feel it a bit near the end. Once the big reveals start dropping, it keeps explaining and tying things up when it probably could have trusted the audience and moved on. A few character exits feel rushed, like the story needs to clear the board to get to the final showdown. It does not ruin the ride, but trimming ten or fifteen minutes would have made it hit harder.
Still, for a streaming action movie, this is way above average. It actually feels like a real movie with proper build, tension, and performances, not just a checklist of shootouts stitched together by an algorithm. It is the kind of film that makes you wish more mid-budget adult thrillers were still getting wide releases, because this would have played great with a crowd.
Overall, The Rip is a solid, tense, old-school cop thriller with just enough character work to make the danger feel personal. It is not trying to be prestige, and that works in its favor. Sometimes you just want a tight crime story, good actors, and a situation that keeps getting worse in believable ways. This one delivers that, and then some.
Screen Rated 
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