Right here’s a very good rule of thumb for making a film: Don’t permit the press tour to be probably the most thrilling part. The Rip, from the director Joe Carnahan, is a cop drama the place macho guys (and gals) tote carbine rifles and grunt law-enforcement lingo—the form of crime-genre pablum that generally will get thrown onto Netflix in mid-January. However this one comes with a ridiculously stacked forged, together with, most necessary, its two leads: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The longtime Hollywood friends have dutifully hit the promotional circuit to speak up their newest collaboration, in addition to argue over who’s the larger New England Patriots fan, reminisce on their former shared checking account, and usually remind everybody in regards to the healthful endurance of their artistic bond.
However none of that cheerfulness or straightforward pal chemistry might be discovered within the movie they’re plugging. Damon and Affleck have acted collectively on-screen quite a few occasions, however that is their first time sharing the highest billing since Dogma, their 1999 darkish comedy a few pair of fallen angels. The hiatus makes The Rip the form of nostalgia-inducing star car that ought to pique viewers’ curiosity—which is why its seeming disinterest within the leads’ private connection is so weird. Affleck performs the Miami Police Division detective J. D. Byrne, and Damon is his superior, Lieutenant Dane Dumars. Byrne and Dumars get drawn right into a conspiracy surrounding a colossal stash of illicit cash, which is coveted by cartel leaders and crooked cops alike. Carnahan, nonetheless, appears extra desirous about depicting sensible police process than in letting the well-known pals have a lot enjoyable collectively.
That The Rip is such a bland venue for its charismatic stars’ reunion is a horrible disgrace. They do look the half, sporting large beards and close-cropped hair; their brows are eternally furrowed and their eyes are continually narrowed as their characters attempt to sniff out one another’s loyalty and the loyalty of different teammates drawn in by “the rip” (the $20 million they’ve simply found). If this movie had been made within the ’80s or ’90s, it might be crackling with zippy one-liners—which writers together with Shane Black (Deadly Weapon) have been paid prime greenback to sprinkle into each script. As a substitute, Carnahan, who’s made different weighty masculine dramas reminiscent of Narc, The Gray, and Copshop, is generally dedicated to exploring how a big sum of cash begins breeding suspicion amongst colleagues.
As Dumars and Byrne, Damon and Affleck are lowered to growling law-enforcement converse, barking into walkie-talkies and finishing up each dialog whereas a minimum of one hand rests on an computerized weapon—simply in case somebody bursts via the wall. The supporting forged, together with Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun, Kyle Chandler, and Catalina Sandino Moreno, all get their very own assault rifle and dictionary of cop lingo. However it appears they’re extra doubtless on board not due to the fabric however due to the attract of working with Damon and Affleck. (Maybe additionally interesting is the truth that the duo’s manufacturing firm, Artists Fairness, labored out a profit-sharing mannequin with Netflix.) The Rip has little else to supply the actors or the viewers past a plot constructed on ratcheting up pressure and double-crossing characters.
I’m unsure why this is the film Damon and Affleck determined to reunite as co-leads for. Within the lead-up to The Rip’s launch, the pair gave context for the lengthy hiatus they took as inventive collaborators. They didn’t wish to be seen as a double act, they defined; the media had rapidly regarded Damon and Affleck as such after they co-starred in and received the Oscar for Greatest Authentic Screenplay for Good Will Searching. The movie, which they wrote collectively of their early 20s, after they have been toiling away on small tasks, launched them to megastardom.
Their careers as A-listers have differed fairly dramatically, nonetheless. Damon grew to become a mannequin of consistency: He headed up sturdy franchises with the Jason Bourne and Ocean’s films whereas additionally churning out work with severe auteurs reminiscent of Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, and Christopher Nolan. Affleck’s expertise with fame was a curler coaster; he appeared out and in of the tabloids and had a number of declines and comebacks. He’s performed two completely different comic-book superheroes, married two completely different superstars, and turn out to be a celebrated director in his personal proper, even successful Greatest Image on the Oscars for Argo. But he’s struggled to take care of an analogous inventive high quality to Damon, bouncing between excessive highs (reminiscent of Gone Woman) and low lows (maybe most infamously the box-office bomb Gigli).
Damon and Affleck’s correct post-Dogma on-screen reunion got here with Ridley Scott’s The Final Duel in 2021, which the pair co-wrote. The film was a monetary disappointment, but it surely was properly reviewed. They adopted that up with Air in 2023, a lighter true-story dramedy about Nike’s courtship of Michael Jordan within the Eighties. In each movies, Damon took the lead position and Affleck performed a princely supporting character who would swoop in for some comedian reduction—a effective steadiness they first established in Good Will Searching, and one which recalled what drew audiences to all of them these years in the past. However neither reunion was the overall head-to-head that some followers may need longed for.
Watch the promotional movies for The Rip and it’s clear why individuals could clamor for Damon and Affleck to revive their dynamic. They’re not play-acting their friendship for the cameras; they’ve a deep, shared historical past, and are canny about how Hollywood has modified within the many years since they tried breaking into the business collectively. (For the report, they’ve been friends since Damon, age 10, met Affleck, age 8, at college.) Their real-world mixture of camaraderie and quiet rivalry, nonetheless, is a vein they’ve in some way hardly ever tapped on-screen. Off-screen, Affleck has a barely rougher star persona, whereas Damon’s could be a little extra withdrawn and mental. Their characters in The Rip, in the meantime, left me annoyed by their similarity: They’re basically simply taking part in two sides of the identical coin.
Then once more, possibly Damon and Affleck are good to supply a film like The Rip. Grumbly motion dramas appear to play properly on streaming companies this time of 12 months, when awards season is dying down and viewers flip to one thing a bit of trashier. The film is hardly a disaster; it’s only a by-the-book, considerably forgettable little notch within the crime style. I’m glad Damon and Affleck are comfy carrying a movie collectively now, after working laborious to ascertain themselves as people. However I’d like to see the actors’ chummy New England competitiveness translate past the press-tour TikToks and return to the display screen—utilizing the variations that make their partnership intriguing to their profit.
