Damon and Affleck ignite tense Miami cop thriller The Rip

Netflix is streaming Joe Carnahan’s The Rip today, a compact Miami-set narcotics thriller that leans on star power and procedural claustrophobia. Running 1 hour 52 minutes and rated R, the film, which is billed as "inspired by true events," opens with a startling prologue: Captain Jackie Velez is gunned down on a rainy Miami night after sending a single text and ditching a burner phone. That act sets in motion a nightlong interrogation and a brittle, suspicion-filled hunt for motive among officers sworn to the same badge.

Matt Damon plays Lieutenant Dane Dumars, recently promoted into Velez’s role, and Ben Affleck is Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne. Their long-standing rapport is the film’s engine; early critics single out their chemistry as the principal attraction. The ensemble includes Sasha Calle as Desi, who is implicated when a search of a house reveals a false wall concealing $20 million in cash; Steven Yeun, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Teyana Taylor, and Néstor Carbonell anchor the supporting cast as the squad and command staff reel under federal scrutiny, budget cuts, and the shuttering of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team.

Carnahan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael McGrale, stages The Rip as a tight, tension-driven whodunnit. The plot confines itself mostly to a single long night and a string of interrogations, turning plot beats into a study of loyalty and institutional rot. The film traces how federal involvement, austerity measures, and the specter of corruption recalibrate relationships inside the department, and how those pressures make every officer a suspect.

Critical reaction released alongside the Netflix premiere skews favorable on performance and pacing while noting uneven craft. Reviewers called the picture "brawny and efficient" and praised the production’s ability to sustain paranoia and doubt; one critic commended the film’s seeding of suspicion in early interrogations and singled out a final twist that reframes aspects of the story. Others fault the screenplay for impracticalities and an action design that can feel by-the-numbers, and some flagged structural excess, suggesting the film suffers from "way too many" different endings. Overall early consensus: The Rip is worth watching for the actors and the taut atmosphere even if it does not always rise above genre mechanics.

Beyond craft, The Rip is notable for what it says about the current film economy. Produced in part by Artists Equity, the production company of Damon and Affleck, and released directly to Netflix, the film exemplifies the continued migration of mid-budget, star-driven projects to streaming platforms. That model rewards immediacy and broad reach over a theatrical rollout, betting that name actors and topical subject matter will drive subscribers and cultural conversation on launch day.

Culturally, the film taps into ongoing debates about policing and accountability. Its Miami setting and plot—stolen drug money, federal oversight, internal distrust—mirror real-world anxieties about institutional failure and the thin line between enforcement and corruption. Representation across the cast also signals mainstream streaming’s ongoing, if uneven, effort to foreground diverse perspectives within conventional genre frameworks.

The Rip will likely be judged in the weeks ahead by audience response and whether viewers find the Damon–Affleck dynamic enough to overcome the script’s limitations. For now, the film stands as a brisk, character-forward addition to streaming’s stable of adult crime dramas.