by Jeffery Rahming, Contributing Writer
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are one of the most prolific duos in Hollywood. From their Oscar-winning debut, Good Will Hunting, to their underrated and underseen film The Last Duel, they’ve proven themselves to be a potent creative mix as well as great friends offscreen.
The Rip brings their bromance to the streets of Miami as cops as we follow Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon) and Detective J.D. Byrne (Affleck), two narcotics officers whose world is turned upside down when their beloved Captain Jackie (Lina Esco) is mysteriously assassinated. Tensions are running high throughout the department as evidence suggests the killing was an inside job. Already saddled with a team that he might not be able to trust, Dumars leads them to a house to confiscate a large amount of illicit money. As usual, money makes things complicated, and the cops, tasked with simply counting the money, are all tempted to take some for themselves.
A thriller with two of cinema’s talented actors should be an easy success. But like many Netflix originals, this whole project just feels underbaked. The RIP feels like watching a very by-the-numbers episode of NCIS. Only it’s one from the 15th season. If you’ve seen a lot of thrillers, you see the beats of this story coming a mile away. It takes a while before things really get going and when the final twist is revealed, it doesn’t feel like we built up to it at all. There’s not enough development for this ensemble of characters, so when the accusations and shooting start, you don’t really care. The cast is absolutely stacked with great actors besides Damon and Affleck, such as Stephen Yeun and recent Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor. But this only goes to accentuate the main problem. Everyone just feels a little too good for this TV-level script, and many times, you can only cringe at watching some of the less experienced actors struggle to bring life into their poorly drawn characters.
Damon and Affleck have such a history and level of acting ability that you can fully believe that their characters are brothers in arms who’ve been through hell and back together. Unfortunately, that feeling doesn’t extend to the rest of the cast. If this was a tv show they would need a few episodes before an audience might start to care about them as a team. If this was an 8-episode miniseries with this exact cast, I’d gladly watch it, but the dynamic they set up just doesn’t work for a two-hour movie. The best example of this is Captain Jackie’s death which is played like a beloved character you’ve known for a couple of seasons has died, and you’re supposed to be mourning with the characters, except that can’t happen because you don’t know Jackie at all. The characters talk about her as if she had a profound impact on their lives throughout, but we’ve never met this woman, and we barely even get to see her in flashbacks, so it all feels a bit hollow.
The Rip could have been a really good, emotional thriller, but it just isn’t developed enough to get there. A solid first or second draft that just desperately needed to be fleshed out more. As it stands, it just feels too generic. You could just watch an episode of CSI: Miami instead. It’s ok enough for a lazy afternoon on the couch, which, in all fairness, is probably the optimal viewing experience as far as Netflix’s number crunchers are concerned. Overall, it’s another stone added to the mountain of mediocrity that are Netflix originals and like most of its kind will be completely forgotten within a month.
Rating: It Was Just Okay
The RIP is currently streaming on Netflix
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