Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning duo reunited for the Netflix original movie, The Rip, released recently. Within the Netflix thriller, a narcotics raid results in an unsettling discovery, and the film lets that moment sit before revealing its weight. Because the story progresses, we’re slowly drawn into the corrupt world of law enforcement and see how money can corrupt even the very best within the business.
But is the movie based on an actual incident? Director Joe Carnahan confirmed that the film shouldn’t be entirely a piece of fiction.
The Rip Draws From A Real $20 Million Drug Case
The Rip follows two Miami cops assigned to a Tactical Narcotics Team. Matt Damon portrays Lieutenant Dane Dumars, and Ben Affleck plays Detective Sergeant JD Byrne. After receiving a reputable lead, the unit searches a suspected secure house, expecting routine results.
As an alternative, the officers uncover roughly $20 million linked to drug activity, a discovery that immediately shifts the direction of the operation. Fairly than following protocol, Dumars withholds the data from superiors and restricts communication. As those decisions unfold, Byrne begins to query whether the situation continues to be under control or moving toward something much more dangerous.
That fracture in trust becomes the film’s driving force. However the story itself didn’t originate in fiction. Joe Carnahan, who wrote and directed the film, credited the narrative to real events. Known for exploring moral compromise inside law enforcement, Carnahan has previously tackled similar themes within the 2002 movie Narc. With The Rip, accuracy became central to the method. To realize that, the production brought in Chris Casiano as a technical advisor, who was directly involved in an actual case that inspired the film.
The enduring duo is so back!
THE RIP, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, is now playing. pic.twitter.com/sn7MI5Fals
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) January 16, 2026
In an interview with /Film’s Ben Pearson, Carnahan explained how Casiano’s firsthand experience influenced key moments within the story: procedural specifics shaped scenes that may otherwise seem exaggerated. For instance, the technique of counting the seized money was neither symbolic nor transient. It was extensive, taking a full forty-two hours, and that timeline appears within the film exactly because it occurred. While specific sequences may feel heightened on the screen, they unfolded that way in point of fact as well.
Carnahan described one such moment intimately, saying, “Chris Casiano was actually involved in that rip. So he was capable of fill in and provides us so much more color by way of those details. … There’s an actual DEA-held Wells Fargo, it’s an actual place, and there was a man with a clipboard waiting for them, and 6 armed men, and so they excused the opposite two officers, put them in Ubers? That’s all true. After which they used a two-story counter, this giant electronic counter. So, that moment where the readout is $20 million, and the cardboard [says the same number]? That truly happened.”
These elements were simply recreated. Nevertheless, The Rip doesn’t present itself as a factual retelling. Carnahan has made that distinction clear. Although arrests were made at the top of the actual investigation, publicly available information beyond that time stays limited, offering little insight into the total scope of the events.
Carnahan On The Distinction Between Fact & Fiction
Because most details of the actual incident weren’t public, invention became unavoidable. Carnahan addressed this directly when discussing the balance between fact and fiction.
“[I]t’s like, you then got to invent the remaining of it, man,” the filmmaker said. “You’ve got to invent all of the little pinwheels and the Rube Goldberg contraption that eventually drops a net over the mouse. But we did have slightly more insight into that than any individual who’s just reading about it.”
So that you mean a bunch of policemen sat there, counted $20,650,480 by hand, and didn’t even consider taking $650,480 for themselves? I won’t ever understand #TheRipOnNetflix
That being said, I actually loved the plot. The strain in that house was insane and the motion scenes were… pic.twitter.com/1LMsxFhnJd
— Totti (@tottibush) January 17, 2026
That additional insight gives The Rip its grounded tone, whilst the narrative escalates into intense drama.
The film also continues a recent stretch of collaborations between Damon and Affleck following The Last Duel and Air. Unlike those projects, familiarity gives strategy to suspicion here. Now streaming on Netflix, The Rip operates between documented circumstance and constructed storytelling. Real events provide the framework, while imagination fills in what history left behind.
For more such stories, take a look at TV updates!
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