It is no great surprise that an action movie, The Rip, starring best buds Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, instantly planted itself as the #1 movie on Netflix. But given that this is…Netflix, with a questionable track record of original action film releases, is The Rip actually worth watching?
Yesterday, I covered the critical reception, where at a certified 82% Rotten Tomatoes score, which actually makes it the second-highest-scored Netflix original action film outside of the 95% Rebel Ridge. Audience reviews are coming in and it currently sits at a 71%.
These numbers would indicate yes, it probably is worth watching, but after seeing it myself yesterday, I have my own take.
I enjoyed it. It’s a fun, harrowing movie, which I would say most resembles Assault on Precinct 13, where the cast of cops is stuck inside a house full of $20 million, attempting to extract it while under siege by unknown forces. The film eventually escapes the house for some pretty blockbuster action scenes in its final third, but before that, it’s a psychological puzzle with a great cast beyond just Damon and Affleck, including Steven Yeun, Sasha Calle, and current One Battle After Another frequent award-winner Teyana Taylor.
The crux of the film is figuring out who’s dirty and who’s clean, as the obvious question is whether the cops will try to steal the cash and who might have set up this enormous rip to get them into that situation. Suspicion bounces around between all five members of the team, and it’s no surprise that Affleck and Damon give all-out performances here as they both track their team members and spar with each other. I did, however, sort of see some of the twists coming by the end, as I think they’re a bit overly hinted at. The movie thinks it’s a bit more clever than it is.
The action sequences can get a bit weird, where at one point, the house just got blasted with hundreds of rounds from assault rifles, and the follow-up response to that is members of the team going outside and walking down an empty street, entirely exposed to any assailants. I’ve played enough Call of Duty to know how awful an idea that is.
It’s a hard-hitting heist movie that yes, does combine some tropes of other similar films, but tropes work for a reason, and combined with this cast, The Rip definitely works more than it doesn’t, and I would agree that it’s in the top tier of Netflix action movies, though that’s not saying much. I’d probably rate it pretty close to Extraction.
Separately, there’s a rather fascinating interview with Matt Damon about how streaming films are made, effectively requiring an attention-grabbing scene up front, then needing to repeat the plot 3-4 times for people on their phones. This is the era we live in now. But even if The Rip does abide by these bizarre rules, yes, it’s still worth watching.
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