Today marks the debut of The Rip on Netflix, an exhilarating action film featuring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as its leads. The duo portrays Miami police officers embroiled in a world of corruption and danger following the murder of their chief. In a twist of fate, they stumble upon a substantial cache of cash hidden in a residence, tempting even the most upright officers with its illicit allure.

Directed and penned by Joe Carnahan, known for his work on The Grey and Boss Level, The Rip brings together a stellar ensemble cast. Alongside Damon and Affleck, the film stars Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Sasha Calle, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Scott Adkins, Kyle Chandler, Néstor Carbonell, and Lina Esco. The story draws inspiration from a real-life Miami police officer, Chris Casiano, a friend of Carnahan, who once discovered an enormous amount of money while overseeing a tactical narcotics unit in Miami.

Thanks to Carnahan’s insider knowledge, the film accurately depicts police procedures, which can occasionally come across as complex. But fear not, as Decider has got you covered. Dive into our detailed analysis, exploring the plot twists and unraveling the mysteries of The Rip, including the identity of the corrupt officer within the story.

Note: Major spoilers for The Rip are ahead. Consider yourself warned!

Warning: Major The Rip spoilers ahead. Duh!

The Rip movie plot summary:

The movie starts with a Miami police Lieutenant, Dane Dumars (Matt Damon), and his team being interrogated about the recent death of their captain, Jackie Velez (Lina Esco). We see via flashback that, just before her death, Jackie was on the phone with a panicked woman. Jackie told the woman she was coming to help her, and not to trust any cops besides her. But before Jackie reaches her destination, she is shot and killed by two masked gunmen. Before she died, she managed to fire off one last text.

Back in the present-day, the FBI are investigating Jackie’s death. They suspect she may have been murdered by one of her team members, the TNT, aka the Tactical Narcotics Team. Most of TNT’s job revolves around confiscating drugs and cash. The FBI agents suspect that some of the cops are dirty, and stealing cash for themselves. They question Detective Sergeant JD Byrne (Ben Affleck) about his romantic relationship with Jackie, implying that she might have been a dirty cop. JD doesn’t like this, and attacks the FBI agent for saying it. Don’t worry, it turns out the agent is JD’s younger brother (Scott Adkins). So it’s fine to beat him up!

Dane and JD are old friends, although recently Dane got a promotion that JD was after, which makes him JD’s boss. But JD insists it’s fine. The two seem to be on the same page, and are frustrated that the FBI seems no closer to solving Jackie’s murder. JD says if he was in charge of the investigation, he would “throw chum in the water” and “yank the line” and “see what comes to the surface.” Dane agrees.

Later that day, Dane reads a text from an unknown number that says, “Stash House in Hilaleah-CARTEL big $$$ 23342 11th Av.” Soon after, he gathers his time for an “extra credit” excursion at the end of the day. (No overtime!) He says he received a “Crimestopper” tip about a “rip” in Hilaleah. Basically, that means an anonymous tipster called the police to report a stash of illegal cash.

Dane tells each of his team members a different amount, when asked how much money is in the stash. He tells Detective Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) $250,000. He tells Detective Mike Ro (Steven Yeun) $150,000. He tells Detective Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno) $75,000. And he tells JD (Affleck) $300,000.

The police are greeted at the house by a woman named Desi (Sasha Calle), who reluctantly lets them inside to search for drugs. What Desi doesn’t know is that the police dog they brought with them is actually trained to sniff out cash, not drugs. With the dog’s help, the detectives uncover what appears to be tens of millions of dollars, cash, stashed in the house’s attic.

Given that the stash of money is so obscenely large, Lieutenant Dane realizes they don’t have long before someone—whether the cartel or dirty cops—shows up to interfere with the police. JD wants to move the money to secure location to count it, but Dane insists they follow protocol, which requires officers to count the money at the location where they seize it. Dane doesn’t to give the FBI any reason to accuse his team of corruption. He also insists on collecting all of his team member’s phones… except for the phone of his best bud JD. Aww! He trusts him!

Curiously, however, Dane does not call in to report the money to the Major, which is also protocol. Hmm. Dane instructs his team to count the money in the garage, where they will have better coverage for gunfire. Desi seems certain people are coming to kill them, and advises them to just take whatever money they want and flee. Sure enough, someone calls the house (which, for some reason, still has a landline? Maybe it’s a cartel thing!). JD answers, and the person on the other end warns him that he has 30 minutes to leave the house. “Just do your job and take the money that was supposed to be there,” the voice says. “No one needs to die over $150,000.”

JD is furious at Dane, who told him the tip was for $300k not $150k. He is suspicious that Dane lied him. But Dane is more interested in the fact that the voice said 150. JD demands to see the crime stopper tip, and Dane says he doesn’t have it. Suspicious, JD calls up his friend Matty, a DEA agent (Kyle Chandler). He tells Matty about the house, the money, and Dane’s weird behavior. Matty insists that Dane must be trying to steal the money. He points to the fact that Dane’s 10-year-old son recently died of cancer, his wife left him, and he’s in medical debt. He also implies that perhaps Dane and Jackie were both corrupt, and working together, but that something went sideways, so Dane killed Jackie.

JD wants to call his FBI agent brother, but Matty says no need to involve the feds! Matty promises to come help JD himself. Dane is, in fact, acting extremely suspicious. Desi overhears him talking to Detective Baptiste and Detective Salazar, saying they have to keep this quiet, but they are all going to get paid and make some money. She then overhears him on the phone with the major, calling in the rip, which he claims is only $150,000, rather than millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, outside, Detective Ro points out to JD that, down the street, one of the house’s lights is flickering in a pattern. JD realizes it’s morse code for “pigs,” meaning someone knows they are there. JD goes to investigate the house on his own. Ro—who has been texting a mysterious someone on his burner phone—goes inside to report this to Dane, where he’s stopped by Desi. Desi—who, it’s revealed, has worked with the cops as an informant in the past—tells Ro everything she overheard from Dane. She thinks Dane is going to steal the money, and begs Ro to call someone they can trust. Ro believes her.

While investigating the house with the flickering light, JD gets a text from Matty that there was never any Crimestopper tip. Another lie from Dane! Someone comes up behind JD with a gun pointed at his head, but we don’t see who. Soon after, the TNT are attacked by gunfire. After the big fight, JD comes out of the house with man from the drug cartel. The cartel guy gets his boss on the phone. The cartel insists they don’t use these house to stash money anymore, and they were not the ones to attack the police detectives. So who did?

Back in the garage, Detective Baptiste and Detective Salazar have finished their count. They give a number to Dane. When Dane and JD tell them what the cartel said—that they don’t want the money, because they don’t want any more high-profile cop deaths—it seems like Dane is going to follow through on his plan to bring $150k to the station, and keep the rest for himself, Detective Baptiste, and Detective Salazar. JD calls up his buddy Matty to tell him that Dane is about to steal the rip, and to get over here with backup ASAP. Matty says he can’t bring backup because he can’t afford the overtime, but that he will come, just him.

So, Matty shows up in an armored vehicle. Dane, JD, and Ro load the money onto the truck. Dane orders Detective Baptiste and Detective Salazar to stay behind, seemingly cutting them out of the deal.

The Rip movie ending explained:

On the truck, Ro accuses Dane of trying to steal the rip. He reveals Desi told him she overheard Dane’s plans. Dane reveals he never intended to steal the rip, he just put on a little show for Desi, so that she would report back to Ro. In a flashback, we see that Dane winked and gestured at Detective Baptiste and Detective Salazar, to let him know what he was doing. None of them actually intended to steal the money.

Dane did this because he wanted Ro to believe that he was going to steal the money, so that Ro would panic and reveal his hand. Dane knew Ro was behind the threatening phone call, because he was the only one who was told that the Crimestopper tip was for $150k, which is what the threatening voice on the call said.

JD was in on this plan, too, though not at first. Dane explains that he needed JD to sincerely suspect him, so that the other officers would, too. But after he realized Ro was part of the “heist team” that steals money from crime scenes, he filled JD in on everything. Yes, Dane admits, there was no Crimestopper tip. There was, however, a text message from Jackie on the night she died: “Stash House in Hilaleah-CARTEL big $$$ 23342 11th Av.”

Jackie wasn’t a dirty cop, she was trying to find the dirty cops. She was using the $20 million as bait, hoping to catch the “heist team” in the act. But the dirty cops knew she was onto them, and killed her.

So, Dane lied about the Crimestopper tip to get all his suspects to the house with the money, to see if the person who killed Jackie would make a mistake. That’s exactly what JD said he would do, by putting “chum in the water,” at the beginning of the movie. Dane now knows Ro was one of the heist members, but he wasn’t sure who Ro was working with… until Matty showed up, alone, to the rip, to “help.”

Matty denies his involvement, but Ro outs him by re-dialing the last outgoing call on his burner phone (which JD stole from him during his staged fight with Dane). Caught out, Matty attacks, and it’s revealed he and Ro were the gunman at the beginning of the film, who shot down Jackie.

While Matty holds JD and Dane at gunpoint, JD gets a phone call, which he puts on speaker. It’s his brother, the FBI agent. You know, the one Matty didn’t want him to call? Yep, the feds have the truck surrounded. Matty and Ro are screwed! Matty tries to make a deal with JD and Dane, to blame it all on Ro and the driver. But he’s forgetting he’s on speakerphone with the literal FBI.

In one last act of desperation, Matty and Ro flee with the bags of money. Matty takes a bag and runs one way, while Ro takes a bag and runs the other. JD catches Matty, and, when Matty tries to shoot, kills him. Dane catches Ro, and arrests him. Both JD and Dane reveal that neither of the bags have money in them, only phone books.

We then see a shot of Detective Baptiste, Detective Salazar, and Desi driving away with the buckets of money, laughing. Wait, what?

Who is a dirty cop in The Rip movie?

The dirty cops in The Rip movie are Ro and Matty, aka Steven Yeun and Kyle Chandler. It might seem for a hot minute there that Detective Baptiste and Detective Salazar were dirty cops who get away with the money the end. But it turns out, they were just driving the movie over to turn it into the proper authorities. When the DEA counts the money, they find not a single penny missing from the count that the TNT came up with at the house. Yay! They’re good cops who didn’t steal! And for her part in helping them, Desi gets to keep some of the seized money.

In the last scene of the movie, best friends forever JD and Dane watch the sunrise over a Miami beach, in honor of something Jackie used to say, “Live to see another sunrise.” While they remember her, they notice a little girl dancing in the sand. The girl’s mom calls for her, revealing her name to be Jackie. JD and Dane marvel at this coincidence. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence at all, but rather, a sign from Jackie from the afterlife. After all, she believed in stuff like that!