The Rip

UK Release Date. 16 January 2026
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 53 mins
Director. Joe Carnahan
Cast. Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, Kyle Chandler, Matt Damon, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun.
Rating. 71%

Review.

Joe Carnahan rose to prominence with the impressive 2002 crime thriller, Narc, starring Jason Patrick and Ray Liotta. After a hiatus of more than 20 years, where he did direct the surprisingly engaging The Grey he returns to the crime genre, and what he does best - making conventional plot devices feel fresh again. The Rip is a homage to the gritty, character driven police films of the 1970s and early 1980s - the likes of The French Connection, Serpico, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, Thief and Fort Apache, The Bronx.

When Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) of the Miami-Dade Police Department is gunned down, suspicion falls on members of the Tactical Narcotics Team led by Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon). Questioned by the FBI and apparently fraying at the seams, the team responds to an anonymous tip off concerning a substantial hoard of drug money in a derelict house thought to be owned by a Columbian drug cartel. When the seizure jumps from thousands of dollars to several million, trust amongst the team is tested and paranoia starts running wild.

The stage is the set for a good old fashioned crime drama full of intrigue and adrenaline in the Sidney Lumet, William Friedkin or Michael Mann mould. The power of the film is in the orchestration and reveal of who is in control of the narrative. Carnahan’s script is nicely unpredictable, are rarely gives way to laboured exposition. The excellent cast further elevates the source material with long term friends and frequent collaborators Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in impressive form, especially when the film moves to the derelict house and the audience is forced to question which of the two of them to believe. Scenes with Damon and Affleck at each others throats feel genuinely dangerous, unstable and, above all, authentic.

The Rip is a sharp, tense and for the most part, tightly constructed offering. There’s a velocity to the film that you can’t quite put your finger on. All seems highly plausible until the suspense is lifted and the overblown climatic end that feels more generic than everything that’s gone before. Nonetheless, the strongest execution lies in the tighter environments such as the attack on the garage, which is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s grossly underrated Assault On Precinct 13.