Forgive me for walking into “The Rip” with cautious pessimistic acuity but I wasn’t really in the mood for watching more algorithmic, dime-a-dozen, generic Netflix fodder where the bare minimum is dished out again…even if it did feature Batfleck and Jason Bourne. But alas, I kept myself composed when some actual decent reviews flew in, so I allowed myself to indulge in whatever occasional surprises there were.
Only thing that surprised me here was how quickly that illusion got shattered.
So this is more or less just your standard cops and robbers tale, the one where the undeniable influence of money over various facets of life demonstrates that even those sworn to protect and serve, like your next policeman, can succumb to corruption and with that leads to the inevitable erosion of trust among colleagues. Add a dead police captain, a ticking clock scenario and some other interested parties catching wind of the money that put the plot into motion….and when you look at all that from a distance, it comes across like it has the bones of an interesting story; think more like an action packed take on The Usual Suspects with the claustrophobic back-stabbing of a classic French heist movie. And the first hour is the film at its strongest: building itself around a setup that promises and rewards slow-burning suspense, quiet conversational templates and emotional depth with retro sensibilities.
It remains engaging throughout, and plays with and against type in ways to keep you engrossed. Unfortunately, it can’t stay that competent forever.
For all the faint interest this film postures about the very nature of violence eroding the soul, how easier it gets to justify said violence when you have even a little bit of power and the ramifications of being trapped in a complicated life with cramped corners and no way out of economic hardships, it’s only for fleeting moments that the film dares to play into those ideas. The entire rest of the narrative is boilerplate stuff playing out exactly how you’d expect it to with its formulaic structure and the self-contained nature of the story taken into account. Very circular with its simplicity yet venturing just far into the reigns of implausiblity, the fact this is based around a true story plays more like a gimmick than an actual foundation to develop the film further and the lack of a emotional crux exposes it as a character piece that does very little with its characters….meaning that the eventual implosion of what’s supposed to be friends and partners turning on each other due to rapid distrust morphs into tiresome finger pointing that leeches the personality from everything.
Apparently this was destined to be the trend this January because the amount of swerves, twists and gotcha reveals it hurls at you to piece every loose thread together is enough to make Vince Russo climax. Honestly, the vast majority of the writing here feels like something he’d write: abjectly relying on cliché and uneven character work to “keep you on your toes” while behaving in ways that defy common sense and moving heaven and earth to systematically rip away your investment. But unfortunately, those twists were all in vain because of one rather egregiously blatant plot hole from the beginning that, to me, immediately gave away who the crooked perpetrators were. It’s one of those swerves that counts on you getting lost in the insanity of everything else but also plays more like the film trying and failing to write itself out of a corner due to how poorly defined the suspect pool is. The answers this film gives you are less interesting than the questions and the way it just sort of shrugs everything off nullifies the deliberately constructed project of paranoia and shifting alliances while rendering the resolution rushed and unsatisfying.
Maybe I’m not the right person to harp on Joe Carnahan’s directorial style since this is my first time watching any of his films…but this felt directed with the finesse of someone trying to paint while wearing oven gloves. Not interested in pointing out any big moral dilemmas or police procedure, his meat-and-potatoes approach is purely stylish….while adding a little stoicism to spice up the otherwise remedial plainness. It’s legible and buoyed by enough lateral thinking to keep the loose stitching from coming apart at the seams but he rarely takes risks despite his confidence.
Sold and advertised as this close-quarters oppressive minefield, I can appreciate Judy Becker’s persistence in mapping out the spatial limitations of her strict production design to wrangle and sustain some atmosphere. Treating this little beat-down cul-de-sac and decaying space like a portable killbox among the humid Miami backdrop doesn’t succeed in making the city itself an essential character in and of itself and being operated on a medium scope and scale in comparison to other stories like this doesn’t project enough claustrophobia into the environment to invoke the necessary sense of alertness…..but it does carry over bits and pieces of the closed-circle local-police-culture dark-confusion vibes from Miami Vice while feeling distinct enough. Can it maintain the illusion of pulpy, spine-chilling thrills? Unfortunately, no…but I can’t knock it against Judy for trying to make it work.
Despite not staring you down to scream it in your face like most movies on their platform, the presentation is still very Netflix-coded with an almost indistinguishable polished approach that prioritizes efficiency over a distinctive voice. So props to Miguel Azpiroz for shooting most of this in a way that counters Netflix’s usual over-lighted, glossy glided cage. His cinematography, combined with the cool metallic color grading and lighting, keeps everything at an arm’s length, which does have some thematic effect that contributes to the evasiveness clouding the team dynamic….and yet there’s a lack of immediacy holding it back from being as tight as it can be. Editing-wise, Kevin Hale’s efforts bring about the same sturdy wavelength to be considered passable….but nothing more.
To give credit where its due, the pacing was perhaps the film’s true saving grace; I learned to appreciate the methodical rhythm of its tempo really early on with a stout flexibility that mostly stretches at a natural propulsion and even with the bloat of the near two-hour runtime (because that finale ran for ten minutes too long), it rarely drags even when the story does become inert and frustrating. Visual effects do not reflect well upon the movies $100 million price tag, whatever decent tension there was in the beginning Peeters out and grows more artificial and oddly detached from reality, the momentum meant to support it holds firm until the last 45 minutes and change and honestly, the tone almost works. There are two halves to this movie, and the second half is where it feels the most chaotic, loud and panicky, contrasting greatly with the more composed gruffness from earlier.
Going once, going twice, going three times on decent but underwhelming synth musical scores this month already, Clinton Shorter’s composition at least has situational awareness on his side; sparingly minimalist with ambient cues to give each scene something resembling a mostly radiant pulse and easy to pick apart and distinguish. Sound design offsets that minimalism by bordering on realism most of the time, Kelli Jones’s costume design stands out specifically for the sake of identifying a civilian or officers social standing and while it’s a very easy R-rating, even that qualifies on the bare minimum with how scarce the violence is. It’s more excessive with its language but just like Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s only so many times you can scream the F-bomb before it starts getting annoying and loses its edge. Yet, perhaps the biggest black eye this film sustains is how tame and pedestrian the action bleeds into everything else; they only come few and far in-between, yet they’re both either extremely sparse or muted beyond recognition to where the action out of proportion but it was difficult to care about who did what to whom and when.
As expected, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are the two biggest draws by default, the former hinting at a damaged, conflicted inner life the script never bothers to explore, while the latter’s swagger suggests a volatile dynamic that never truly materializes…..which is something I can apply to the rest of the cast. Despite headlining an admittedly charismatic ensemble filled with performers that wonderfully bounce off one another, they still fall mere decimals short of Matt and Ben; only Sasha Calle rises to their stock and matches it.
The dialogue they’re given is acceptable but still hollow and every character is broadly sketched out to only two defining traits or quirks, if that, to where the script never really capitalizes on any of them; the women in particular get jettisoned and sidelined by the ending twist.
Maybe this is on me for expecting something more out of a copaganda film…but for a film that knew it was never going to rewrite the action movie template, I still can’t help but feel cheated regardless.
