“I’ve always been a big fan of the cop film,” Joe Carnahan tells Tudum. The writer and director of upcoming action thriller The Rip also made the movies Narc and Copshop, two films which are very different from one another, with The Rip being a departure from both of those. It’s “an extension of that genre,” Carnahan explains, with a real-life component, a very emotional core, and a key question that gets posed throughout the film: Are we the good guys?
Starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, The Rip follows a team of Miami cops who have discovered millions in cash in a derelict stash house. Soon, the trust between them begins to erode, especially once outside forces learn about the size of the seizure. Everything is called into question — including who they can rely on.
The film’s DNA includes everything from “Serpico, Prince of the City, and Michael Mann's Heat,” and Carnahan also drew inspiration from the story of his “very dear friend,” a police officer in Miami, who taught Carnahan all about “rips” — a term used to describe when cops seize illegal weapons, drugs, or, as in The Rip, lots and lots of cash.
At the center of this film is the dynamic between Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon, “essentially playing the doppelgänger” of Carnahan’s friend) and Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Affleck), who can be seen in new photos and the just-released teaser trailer working closely together, as partners and as part of a larger team. It’s clear that Dumars and Byrne have the kind of communicative shorthand that can only come from a longstanding relationship. It’s an intimacy that feels palpable for audiences; even as Dumars and Byrne are starting to wonder whether they can trust each other anymore, viewers believe in the strength of their bond.
“You talk about the meta of something,” Carnahan says about having Damon and Affleck, who are both producers on The Rip, in these roles, “you’ve got these two guys who have both been world-famous for over 30 years with a wonderful sense of friendship and brotherhood … Those guys are just so gifted and lovely and talented and open.”
With the pair as “anchors” for the cast, Carnahan says, “everybody’s going to draft off them. So you get Teyana Taylor and you get Steven Yeun and you get Catalina [Sandino Moreno] and you get Kyle Chandler and you get Scott Adkins and Sasha Calle who all just show up and give you this wonderful sense of reality and authenticity.”
“It doesn't feel like a bunch of actors just showed up five minutes before,” Carnahan continues. “The bonding and spending time and people really, genuinely liking each other gave it this great feeling that is hard to capture. But when you get it, you're so lucky and fortunate. All the performances are wonderful. It's a testament to what happens when you get a bunch of talented people together, you give them something that they could relate to and latch onto and the results speak for themselves.”
“If the audience falls in love with the characters, you got them,” Carnahan says. “Because at some point you're going to get your heart broken, you just don't know by whom.”
As seen in the photos, The Rip’s ensemble are locked in working with each other, whether in the stash house, outside the police station, or deep in the weeds of the lush Miami landscape, trying to find out how to move forward in a world fraught with tough decisions — and millions in unclaimed dollars.
It can be hard to trust anyone when the stakes are so high, but Carnahan cautions against watching this film with a purely cynical eye, saying he hopes The Rip can be a reminder that “there are good people in the world. They want to do good, they want to help people, they want to be kind, they want to be compassionate, they want to be empathetic … I think it’s a good time for that message.”
The Rip will be streaming on Netflix on Jan. 16.
