The Secret to One of Hollywood’s Most Enduring Friendships

Here’s a good rule of thumb for making a movie: Don’t allow the press tour to be the most exciting component. The Rip, from the director Joe Carnahan, is a cop drama where macho guys (and gals) tote carbine rifles and grunt law-enforcement lingo—the kind of crime-genre pablum that commonly gets thrown onto Netflix in mid-January. But this one comes with a ridiculously stacked cast, including, most important, its two leads: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The longtime Hollywood pals have dutifully hit the promotional circuit to talk up their latest collaboration, as well as argue over who’s the bigger New England Patriots fan, reminisce on their former shared bank account, and generally remind everyone about the wholesome endurance of their creative bond.

But none of that cheerfulness or easy friend chemistry can be found in the film they’re plugging. Damon and Affleck have acted together on-screen numerous times, but this is their first time sharing the top billing since Dogma, their 1999 dark comedy about a pair of fallen angels. The hiatus makes The Rip the kind of nostalgia-inducing star vehicle that should pique viewers’ curiosity—which is why its seeming disinterest in the leads’ personal connection is so bizarre. Affleck plays the Miami Police Department detective J. D. Byrne, and Damon is his superior, Lieutenant Dane Dumars. Byrne and Dumars get drawn into a conspiracy surrounding a colossal stash of illicit money, which is coveted by cartel leaders and crooked cops alike. Carnahan, however, seems more interested in depicting realistic police procedure than in letting the famous friends have much fun together.

That The Rip is such a bland venue for its charismatic stars’ reunion is a terrible shame. They do look the part, sporting big beards and close-cropped hair; their brows are eternally furrowed and their eyes are constantly narrowed as their characters try to sniff out each other’s loyalty and the loyalty of other teammates drawn in by “the rip” (the $20 million they’ve just discovered). If this film had been made in the ’80s or ’90s, it would be crackling with zippy one-liners—which writers including Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) were paid top dollar to sprinkle into every script. Instead, Carnahan, who’s made other weighty masculine dramas such as Narc, The Grey, and Copshop, is mostly devoted to exploring how a large sum of money starts breeding suspicion among colleagues.

As Dumars and Byrne, Damon and Affleck are reduced to growling law-enforcement speak, barking into walkie-talkies and carrying out every conversation while at least one hand rests on an automatic weapon—just in case someone bursts through the wall. The supporting cast, including Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun, Kyle Chandler, and Catalina Sandino Moreno, all get their own assault rifle and dictionary of cop lingo. But it seems they’re more likely on board not because of the material but because of the allure of working with Damon and Affleck. (Perhaps also appealing is the fact that the duo’s production company, Artists Equity, worked out a profit-sharing model with Netflix.) The Rip has little else to offer the actors or the audience beyond a plot built on ratcheting up tension and double-crossing characters.

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I’m not sure why this is the movie Damon and Affleck decided to reunite as co-leads for. In the lead-up to The Rip’s release, the pair gave context for the long hiatus they took as artistic collaborators. They didn’t want to be seen as a double act, they explained; the media had quickly regarded Damon and Affleck as such after they co-starred in and won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. The film, which they wrote together in their early 20s, when they were toiling away on small projects, launched them to megastardom.

Their careers as A-listers have differed quite dramatically, however. Damon became a model of consistency: He headed up robust franchises with the Jason Bourne and Ocean’s movies while also churning out work with serious auteurs such as Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, and Christopher Nolan. Affleck’s experience with fame was a roller coaster; he appeared in and out of the tabloids and had multiple declines and comebacks. He’s played two different comic-book superheroes, married two different superstars, and become a celebrated director in his own right, even winning Best Picture at the Oscars for Argo. Yet he’s struggled to maintain a similar artistic quality to Damon, bouncing between high highs (such as Gone Girl) and low lows (perhaps most infamously the box-office bomb Gigli).

Damon and Affleck’s proper post-Dogma on-screen reunion came with Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel in 2021, which the pair co-wrote. The movie was a financial disappointment, but it was well reviewed. They followed that up with Air in 2023, a lighter true-story dramedy about Nike’s courtship of Michael Jordan in the 1980s. In both films, Damon took the lead role and Affleck played a princely supporting character who would swoop in for some comic relief—a fine balance they first established in Good Will Hunting, and one that recalled what drew audiences to them all those years ago. But neither reunion was the total head-to-head that some fans might have longed for.

Watch the promotional videos for The Rip and it’s clear why people may clamor for Damon and Affleck to revive their dynamic. They’re not play-acting their friendship for the cameras; they have a deep, shared history, and are canny about how Hollywood has changed in the decades since they tried breaking into the industry together. (For the record, they’ve been pals since Damon, age 10, met Affleck, age 8, at school.) Their real-world mix of camaraderie and quiet rivalry, however, is a vein they’ve somehow rarely tapped on-screen. Off-screen, Affleck has a slightly rougher star persona, while Damon’s can be a little more withdrawn and intellectual. Their characters in The Rip, meanwhile, left me frustrated by their similarity: They’re essentially just playing two sides of the same coin.

Then again, maybe Damon and Affleck are smart to produce a movie like The Rip. Grumbly action dramas seem to play well on streaming services this time of year, when awards season is dying down and viewers turn to something a little trashier. The movie is hardly a catastrophe; it is just a by-the-book, somewhat forgettable little notch in the crime genre. I’m glad Damon and Affleck are comfortable carrying a film together now, after working hard to establish themselves as individuals. But I’d love to see the actors’ chummy New England competitiveness translate beyond the press-tour TikToks and return to the screen—using the differences that make their partnership intriguing to their benefit.