The Rip

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck share the screen again in new Netflix film, The Rip. Similar to the pulpy, mid-budget cop movies we used to get, The Rip is about a team of cops who are trying to take a huge stash of money from a drug cartel. But that work is not only dangerous, but also complicated as they encounter more money than they expected. The cast also includes Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Kyle Chandler. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:20Stephen Thompson?

  Ben Affleck and Matt Damon famously worked together in Good Will Hunting, which won them an Oscar. Now they share the screen in The Rip, which is similar to the pulpy, mid-budget cop movies we used to get in theaters, but now is being released directly to Netflix. The Rip is about a team of cops who are trying to take a huge stash of money from a drug cartel, but that work is not only dangerous, but also complicated. A huge pile of illicit cash can lead to temptation and deep distrust, because the presence of even one dirty cop can ruin everything. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about The Rip on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:19Stephen Thompson?

  Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Hello. Happy to be here with you. Thank you.

• 2:29Stephen Thompson?

  A pleasure to have you. Also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Hey, Roxana. Hello. Thank you for having me. Oh, it is always a pleasure. In the opening moments of The Rip, a police team's captain is murdered. Soon thereafter, they act on a tip about a stash of drug money outside Miami. They assemble a team, including a money-sniffing dog, to confiscate it. That team includes not only the cops, played by Affleck and Damon, but also ones played by Steven Yeun, Tiana Taylor, and Catalina Sandino Moreno. As they encounter more money than they expected, the case grows increasingly complicated.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  How much was the tip that came in? Said 300 grand. The Crime Stopper tip that just got called in said 300? 300, 300.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  I'm in trouble, JD. Yeah. A lot.

• 3:21Stephen Thompson?

  Soon, various stakeholders, local cops, the DEA, other feds, cartel bosses, and the homeowner whose property contains the money, all make their presence felt. But there's also increasing paranoia and distrust from within the team's ranks. The Rip is streaming on Netflix now. Jordan Cruciola, I'm gonna start with you. What'd you think of The Rip?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  I had a great time. This is like a box-checky kind of movie. Like, this is cops? Is this dirty cops? This is a stash house. It's even Miami. It's Florida crime. And, like, the ensemble you mentioned, in addition, there's Kyle Chandler is here. You love to see Kyle Chandler in a uniform of any kind, I feel.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Of any kind. I'm so into Dirtbag Damon. I'm thinking of, like, Matt Damon getting these, like, surprising, incredibly, like, satisfying meal turns. Like, I'm thinking of him in The Last Duel, playing one of the roles of his life. I'm thinking of him in this. I'm so into Dirtbag Affleck.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Blue collar in this movie as the bilingual angry cop whose brother is Scott Adkins and like an internal affairs investigator in this movie. And honestly, it functioned very effectively for me. It's a haunted house movie at points. Like this has like haunted house at the end of an empty street, kind of like a misty evening. I was fully wrapped up in the suspense of this. I was having a blast with the cast and I was having a blast with the gunfights. This is a blue collar entertainment as our characters are portrayed on screen. And I think it's a great little Friday night, multi-bag of popcorn kind of movie.

• 5:01Stephen Thompson?

  Okay, like Miami Vice, but really grubby.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  Grubby, grubby. And God, you know, what a great example of the movies that come out in an Oscar campaign's year. You have like Amanda Seyfried, Testament of Ann Lee, but then she's making The Housemaid. You have Tiana Taylor getting her awards for one battle after another. And in the meantime, she's in that Ryan Murphy show and this. The things adjacent to an Oscar campaign, a great like Hollywood anthropological study.

• 5:25Stephen Thompson?

  All right. So Jordan, you are pro.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Pro, yes.

• 5:27Stephen Thompson?

  Stream it with a big bag of popcorn.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was with my family in Oregon this past weekend. I was like, you know what movie you're gonna love that's coming up this week? And they are, they're gonna love it. They're gonna love it. My mom, my dad, they're gonna love it.

• 5:36Stephen Thompson?

  All right. How about you, Roxana?

• 5:38Speaker 05

  You know, Jordan and I are often on similar episodes because our tastes usually overlap. And I adore her. But also sometimes I say this thing on an episode with Jordan where I say, I'm so happy you had a nice time.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  And that's what I will say here. I'm so happy that Jordan had a nice time.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  As a student of heat, specifically as you are, I've been really wondering what your reaction was gonna be to this movie.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  Yes. I'm not sure we watched the same movie because I personally felt like the suspense was not suspending. But I think that there are elements here that I really liked. As Jordan said, the final like 20 to 25 minutes are just like a heat ripoff, which, you know, so many movies have done this. It's heat. Like, I get it.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  I just did not feel invested in these characters in a way that made the twists and turns of the plot that interesting. But I will say that I think visually it does some things that are really spectacular. There is a shootout that is just awash in like. These neon Lisa Frank colors that I think are really interesting and unexpected. It's like this movie opens with the Miami skyline and all the neon colors there. And then all of those colors show up in this gunfight, which is really interesting. And I cosign Jordan that I really adore Ben Affleck in this mode.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  I have to say that he is introduced wearing a track jacket, a gold chain necklace, smoking a cigarette and wearing a double gun like shoulder holster. This man so badly wishes that he were in Eastern Promises. So like, there are a lot of elements that feel really fun. I just don't think it coalesces into something that I had fun with.

• 7:38Stephen Thompson?

  Interesting. I think I'm a little closer ultimately to Team Jordan here. I think that this felt like a throwback to an era of somewhat. It's not that there are no stakes in the movie, obviously, but as a viewer, the stakes feel lower. This feels like solid, kind of B grade, basic cable, Saturday afternoon, kind of gritty, pulpy. Two hours fly by.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Two hours, 30 minutes of commercials on TNT.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  See, I, I'm just shaking my head because I think it took me three hours to watch this 111 minute movie.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. No, I was flying. I was flying through this.

• 8:16Stephen Thompson?

  I flied and I have, my attention has been known to wane. So I think part of it is, I think Damon and Affleck, whatever they're in together, they've been in several movies together now, including The Last Duel. I'm not sure how The Last Duel keeps getting compared to this movie. They're very different.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  Because it's a great movie.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  The comparisons, they stop at a certain point. Please do not mistake me. But like, if you're thinking of like, these actors serving off of each other, yes, you can.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:43Stephen Thompson?

  That's where I'm trying to get at here is these two guys have chemistry. They've always had chemistry. They're lifelong friends. And that really, I think, comes through here. Whether they are, you know, kind of working in agreement with each other or in opposition to each other, they have. Chemistry, and I think that is part of what kind of propels this movie forward. It has, I mean, as you said, Jordan, there is a kind of haunted house quality to this movie.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  The whole detail with the street that they're on, I was like, oh, this is cool.

• 9:14Stephen Thompson?

  It gives you a real sense of place and it gives you a real sense of what the stakes are. It does a fair bit of kind of underlining. As twisty as it is, it doesn't get hopelessly Byzantine. You can, you'll probably kind of figure out the gist of where it's going. It is not a wildly unpredictable movie. But to me, I felt like this was the sort of kind of basic cable, mid-grade, two to three star, you know, just like fun, Saturday afternoon bucket of popcorn kind of movie. And I think if Netflix wants to kind of position itself as the new basic cable, which it basically is.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  You're right, they need to admit it, it's so true.

• 9:55Stephen Thompson?

  You know, then I'm here for it. And, and I think this film held my attention in ways I didn't necessarily expect it to.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Roxana, were you feeling, before it gets into like the knot of the mystery in ways that you might have preferred different decision? Were you feeling even at the outset, say even first half, were you not, the teeth were not getting in the movie for you?

• 10:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think that Damon and Affleck together are always solid. They're doing their like prickly banter. They seem to be having like two different conversations at once. I think all of that is really solid. And I think to like Stephen's point, that is what kept me invested in the first place. But I do think that talking about the like basic cable of it all. We recently, and by recently, I mean last month, but I have no concept of time. We were talking about The Housemaid, which also feels like a throwback genre movie that would live on television on Saturday afternoons.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  The weird VH1 edit where it's like, why did this supposed to be sexy, but the sexy's gone?

• 11:02Speaker 05

  Right, and we would, we were sort of praising the like vintage genre shape of that. But what worked so well for me with Housemaid is that there is this like bonkers third act twist that felt like it was taking an established formula and doing something new with it. And I think for me, the rip just felt like established formula. And I did not feel like it was doing something. Particularly new or interesting, I will say the fact that there isn't a real third act twist. I kept waiting for it. Like, I thought there would be like a post-credit scene that, you know, yanked me in a new direction, but it didn't. So I think I was

• 11:43Speaker 05

  just a little bit let down by frankly, how generic it felt. Outside of the visuals and outside the fact that it is Affleck and Damon, I just was sort of underwhelmed.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wouldn't even disagree with that. It plays through in the way that you were describing, and for me, that was effective, and I can see why for you it wasn't.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:00Stephen Thompson?

  I mean, I think it's interesting. Like, this film was written and directed by Joe Carnahan, who has worked on movies like The Grey.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is important information. This is a Joe Carnahan movie for sure.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Right.

• 12:10Stephen Thompson?

  He directed Narc. You know, these movies are not necessarily intended to be like massively artful and twisty.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 12:17Stephen Thompson?

  But I think what you get here is a kind of journeyman filmmaking that hides the level of skill involved. Because the fact that this film, and Roxana and I, our mileage really varied here, I found it to be on rails in a way that made it go faster.

• 12:36Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, the unstoppable train was rolling for me.

• 12:39Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, instead of on rails where it's like boring and predictable, it's on rails where it's kind of zipping along.

• 12:45Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  How did you feel about the ensemble, Roxana? How did you feel like they were clicking together? What'd you think of our cops?

• 12:50Speaker 05

  I thought that Tiana Taylor was great, sort of to the earlier point of like, what are the different ensemble members bringing? I really liked her energy. I thought that she was adding like a levity and sort of like a no nonsense, this is just our jobs dynamic that I really enjoyed.

• 13:09Speaker 06

  She had my pack. She looked bad to me.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  And has her death in any way?

• 13:15Speaker 06

  No, no, no, let's not. Her death. And let's her murder. She was murdered. Let's keep it real. Let's keep it a bean.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  I really enjoyed Kyle Chandler. I think that he is in like a very fun spot in his career. Where he is just like showing up, being the authoritarian guy with a little bit of like a wink, you know, like it made me think of his performance in Game Night.

• 13:40Speaker 07

  I'm B A Burns. That makes me Miami's finest. Ask your crooked cops you socialize.

• 13:46Speaker 05

  What really disappointed me is I was like, we have Scott Adkins and he's not Scott Adkinsing. Like he's such an action star.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Speaking of things you're waiting for, guys, I am gonna pop the bubble. If you're like, oh, it's Scott Adkins, he's gonna do a butterfly spinning kick through the air. No, he's not.

• 14:04Stephen Thompson?

  At no point.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  I think this goes back to something Stephen was saying, which is that I perhaps came in with expectations of like, oh, Scott Adkins. So we're gonna get an action sequence. And then when we didn't get it, it was a disappointment for me, but maybe those were my expectations rather than being fair to the film for what it was. Stephen, am I like sort of on the right track here? What do you think?

• 14:27Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, I mean, I think the context in which you take in this film is extremely important. And like, if you're coming into this film, I mean, like, there are gonna be people who would consider watching this film who are like, I don't wanna watch a cop movie right now.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 14:40Stephen Thompson?

  And like, that is going to affect whether you enjoy this film or not.

• 14:44Speaker 05

  I think that was part of it, yeah.

• 14:46Stephen Thompson?

  There are gonna be people who are like, I'm sick of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They're probably not gonna enjoy this movie very much. But if you go into it, like, you want a kind of, as we have said repeatedly, basic cable, throwback, cop movie that will entertain you for two hours. For me, this fits the brief. And so I think if you go into it with your expectations set accordingly, you're not spending night out at the movie's money.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  It's included in the price you've already paid.

• 15:12Stephen Thompson?

  Exactly. And like, that does come into play. There are movies that really work on streaming that do not work in theaters and kind of vice versa. And to me, the fact that Netflix kind of acquired this film and released it the way that they did, works in its favor as a viewing experience.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I know, but I was watching it thinking of like, why are we getting 10 of these movies a year?

• 15:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think there are two things that I wanna say about that. One, you know, sort of, we talked about like, Theatrical versus streaming, where does this movie live? Cable, where does this movie live? I feel like what it really is for me is when you would go to like Wegmans and there was a red box outside and you saw all of these action movies that you had never heard of because they were maybe independently funded or maybe acquired and then just sort of like directly released to DVD. Again, I think if that's an experience you can miss, this is sort of what that reminded me of, like

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 16:09Speaker 05

  looking at a bank of movies and being like, I've never heard of any of these, but maybe they're fun. And then the last thing that I think is interesting, we're talking about it being on Netflix. It was newsworthy that Damon and Affleck said that their production company negotiated a deal with Netflix, right? Where if the movie is a success on Netflix, the entire production will get like backend bonuses.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 05

  Which Netflix has not done before. And Affleck said that like the two sides agreed on certain metrics. It's not clear what those metrics are.

• 16:42Stephen Thompson?

  Wait, Netflix metrics are unclear? Okay, wow.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:44Stephen Thompson?

  My mind is blown. Go ahead.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  Hundred percent. All I will say is setting aside whatever my feelings were about this movie, I really do hope that it is successful because I think those backend bonuses were like very key to when Hollywood had a middle class and like a crew who could work on these movies.

• 17:02Stephen Thompson?

  Exactly.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  Thousand percent, which is exactly how Affleck has framed it. This used to be a profession where you could have a middle class life.

• 17:08Stephen Thompson?

  That was exactly the phrase I was going to end this conversation on was bring back the cinematic middle class. I think we are missing out on a lot of great movies that way and just a lot of fun movies.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:18Stephen Thompson?

  I think we can agree as widely as our opinions on this film vary, at home on the couch with a big bucket of popcorn is probably the way to experience it. We want to know what you think about the rip. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Cruciola, Roxana Hadadi, thanks so much for being here.

• 17:44Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 17:46Stephen Thompson?

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Latimore, Mike Katsev, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next time.

• 18:05Speaker 02

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