THE RIP

Start with the good news, because there's real good news here. THE RIP is a genuinely enjoyable mystery-thriller — twisty, well-cast, and confidently made, with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck bringing real chemistry to a story about a narcotics unit turning on itself. If craft were the only question, this would be an easy recommendation.

It isn't the only question. The film contains an estimated 280 obscenities, including 220 "f" words, alongside strong action violence with people shot and killed. On top of that, characters process grief for a dead teammate by believing she's sending them signs "from the beyond" — a well-meaning idea that blurs real Christian hope with something closer to the occult.

None of that cancels the film's moral spine — a team member chooses mercy over vengeance, and the story does care about doing right. But the sheer volume of language here isn't a flaw you route around; it's the whole viewing experience. Skip this one.

Miami's Tactical Narcotics Team is still grieving the murder of one of their own — and facing an FBI investigation into whether one of them is dirty. Rumors swirl that crooked cops have been skimming cash from drug houses. When the team is called out on what should be a routine tip, they find far more money than expected — and a lot more reason to distrust each other.

Four stars means the craft here genuinely delivers, and it does. The source praises a mystery "full of twists and turns that will keep viewers guessing until the very end," with Damon and Affleck's long-standing partnership giving the leads real chemistry, and Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Sasha Calle deepening the drama around them. This is a well-built thriller, tense and well-cast, doing exactly what the genre asks of it.

Craft and content are separate questions, though, and that's the whole story of this review: a four-star thriller that a family — or frankly most adults — should still pass on.

At its core, THE RIP wants to say something true: that doing the right thing matters more than self-preservation, and that mercy is worth choosing even toward someone who wronged you. One character, given the chance to kill a man connected to a friend's death, arrests him instead. That's a real moral instinct, and it's worth naming as such.

But the film pairs that instinct with a confused spiritual picture. Characters find comfort in believing their dead teammate is watching over them and sending signs "from the beyond." That impulse toward hope is human and understandable — grief reaches for something — but it isn't the hope Scripture offers. The Bible doesn't point us toward messages from departed loved ones; it points us toward Christ, who conquered death itself. And no amount of moral seriousness offsets a script built on nearly 300 obscenities, which the source calls "extremely excessive" — language so constant it becomes the dominant experience of watching the film.

The ache underneath THE RIP — people who want to do right, who want their losses to mean something, who want justice served without becoming corrupted by it — is a real ache. Scripture answers it plainly: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

THE RIP is a well-made, well-acted thriller with a moral core worth respecting — and a script so saturated with profanity and violence that it drowns out everything it does well. Our answer stands: skip it. Looking for something to watch instead? Try our latest.