The Rip

Joe Carnahan's latest crime thriller doesn't rip nor does it suck.

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Writer/producer/director Joe Carnahan broke out with the criminally underrated corrupt cop classic “Narc” back in 2002 and returns to the well less successfully (but not unsuccessfully) with his latest offering “The Rip” (now streaming on Netflix).

The picture opens with the parking lot murder of Miami Police Department’s Capt. Jackie Velez (Lina Esco). Velez oversaw a specialized unit known as the Tactical Narcotics Team with Lt. Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) serving as her second in command.

Feds come sniffing around the squad in the form of FBI Agent Del Byrne (direct-to-video action superstar Scott Adkins) as rumors have run rampant about them ripping off dirty drug ducats, which may have led to Velez’s death.

Complicating matters further is the fact that team member Detective Sgt. J.D. Byrne (Ben Affleck, reuniting with Carnahan almost 20 years after “Smokin’ Aces”) had a romantic relationship with Velez and is the older brother of FBI Agent Byrne with whom there’s no love lost. (It’s laughable when Adkins and Affleck’s characters scrap and Affleck appears to have the advantage with Adkins wimpily referring to him as a bully.)

Dumars receives a text about a house in Hialeah, Fla. that supposedly contains a bunch of illicit cash so he, Byrne and fellow TNT squadmates Detective Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Detective Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor, a recent Golden Globe-winner for “One Battle After Another”), Detective Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and an adorable money-sniffing beagle named Wilbur descend upon the residence to investigate.

The home’s sole inhabitant is a young woman named Desi (Sasha Calle, she played Supergirl in “The Flash”), who says she inherited the place from her late abuela. She’s cooperative to a point, but shit gets real and hits the fan when TNT discovers $20 million in the abode’s attic.

Carnahan has made an entertaining but not extraordinary crime thriller with “The Rip.” He does a nice job of escalating tension and what little action we get is fairly well done. There are twists aplenty and most of them land. Landing less well is the litany of bad language. I have no doubt that these folks would likely talk this way, but there are other words besides f*ck.

It’s fun to see old buddies Damon and Affleck play off one another (often contentiously), but their scenes and the movie itself don’t have the oomph of previous collaborations such as “Good Will Hunting,” “Dogma,” “The Last Duel” and “Air.” Our stars are strongly supported by their talented supporting cast, which also includes Kyle Chandler as DEA Agent Matty Nix.

“The Rip” is a serviceable enough piece of star-powered streaming content that falls somewhere near the middle or the back of Carnahan’s cinematic oeuvre, but I’d definitely be open to seeing Damon, Affleck and their director reteam again for something else sometime sooner rather than later.