I am usually not a fan of the crime genre as it tends to be unentertaining and falls flat against the expectations many other audience members rave about. The serious and uninspiring tone of these films drives me to boredom, as they tend to follow the same tropes and expectations of previous genre pieces.
However, the high-production value and casting of Netflix’s latest cop thriller “The Rip” released on Jan. 16. made me curious about whether or not my notions of the subgenre could be swayed.
The film's $100 million budget was spent on an array of well-known actors including Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, and Steven Yeun. As these actors attempt to bring life to a conventionally simplistic film, their clever performances are dimmed once the plot muddles into a conglomeration of crime tropes.
While “The Rip” continues the same trope-heavy path for the genre by obtaining the classic twist ending of the crime thriller, and the often seemingly random sappy plotlines given to the characters that offer no significance to the story, I found that I didn’t entirely dislike this film.
The story follows a group of cops that, after the untimely murder of fellow Detective Jackie Velez (Lina Esco), are tipped off to a large sum of cash located inside a stash-house. Upon raiding the house, they discover that the cash sum is much larger than they had thought, totaling over $20 million of suspected cartel money.
Under law, they have to count this money before they leave, and throughout the painstaking stretch of time, they risk their lives as the unknown culprit’s phone call counts down each minute until they execute the cops. In addition, the cops' suspicions begin to grow and their trust towards each other is questioned as they ultimately find out who actually is behind this scheme.
Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon), is first believed to be the perpetrator because “he has nothing to lose.” Grappling with the depressing loss of his child’s passing from cancer, the thriller begins to get into sappy territory.
Audiences get a cliche “troubled cop” archetype in this film as Dumars is rippled with his traumatic backstory. Yet, Dumars’ backstory makes sense to include in the context of the story, something that many crime thrillers lack.
“The Rip” was first conceived when director Joe Carnahan’s close friend Chris Casiano, a real cop in the Miami-Dade Police Department, discovered a massive amount of cash in a house back in 2016. Carnahan was also inspired by classic cop thrillers, clearly evident with the “dirty-cop” trope he incorporated into the characters Detective Ro and Agent Mateo Nix (Kyle Chandler).
While I can say that Carnahan was successful in making a cop thriller that can be easily identified as just that, I cannot say this film is in any way distinct from others in the subgenre.
The standard twist ending is that the perpetrator was not who the audience and other supporting characters thought it was the whole time.
Where “The Rip” falls flat is that the perpetrators are more unaware of their plan themselves than the protagonists. They get outsmarted quite easily, leading me to wonder why they weren't stopped in the first place.
Another big issue I have with this film is the underrepresentation of the female cops, Detective Numa Baptiste (Taylor) and Detective Lolo Salazar (Catalina Moreno). They are quite literally tossed aside in a room by themselves to count all the money, while the male characters get to engage in violence and solve the real mystery behind the cash.
These female cops display that they are very much capable at the end by transporting the cash back, but are sidelined for most of the film.
Within all of these design flaws in the structure of the movie, I still found a film that was moderately entertaining. The actors truly carried their performances to deliver a high-paced and intense thriller. While watching the film, I sympathized with Dumars while simultaneously suspecting him to be the culprit.
For crime thriller fans, “The Rip” is another must-see, but for your average viewer? The film is nothing to write home about nor one that will provide a deeply inspiring feeling to its viewer. Instead, “The Rip” falls into a barrel of mediocrity, like the charming films one watched as a kid but otherwise had a lackluster plot.
