The Rip

The Rip Review: Is this Netflix's best original high-concept film?

Brighton Nelson

02 Mar 2026 — 3 min read

I kept hearing great buzz about this film! Consistently being heralded as Netflix's success story in making a truly decent four-quadrant blockbuster, I wanted to check this one out to see if the hype in my critic circles was veritably warranted. While the premise didn't blow me away, I'm happy to give every movie its due diligence: so, is this film really all that? Does it supersede the astronomically low bar of many Netflix big-budget, movie-star slop-fests and launch into the stratosphere of upper-echelon filmmaking? That's what I, Brighton Nelson of The Reel Ranker, will be breaking down today. Thanks for joining me on my stupidly silly quest to review and rank every movie, and I hope you enjoy this article.

Damon and Affleck are great... but they probably should've chose a better film.

In some ways, my fellow critics were easily right: this film had a darker, grittier style than most Netflix films, even if it was still as overlit and glossily produced as usual. The acting was more original and competent than usual, and the themes were surprisingly solid. The film centers on trust and how it changes amid the circumstances, and its approach to action reflects these more personal stakes.

The action here is rather small and down-to-earth, and the majority of the film's runtime is instead spent on solving the mystery of who the rat is. I really enjoyed the different approach, and it certainly worked better than most Netflix films. It felt far more original than usual—the film's biggest strength. However, while it's cool to see the mystery pay off, the film has no real substance beyond the endgame plot reveals. The drab buildup of done-to-death macho men caricatures with no distinct flair, arguing for hours on end about money, simply feels like a worse version of many films we've seen before, even if it is easily an upper-tier Netflix action original.

The Reel Ranker Verdict

Reel or Unreel? - Unreel
The Reel Ranker Score: 38%
Letter Score: D+
Star Ranking: 2 out of 5

The Rip is well-made, it's well-directed, but it's simply generic straight-to-streaming action fare. Its mystery elements are generic, the characters and premise are derivative, and the plot's payoff can't justify a watch or a recommendation. The only true selling point of The Rip is, at the very least, it isn't as bad as X-Y-or-Z-other-terrible Netflix films.

Check out some of my other recent reviews below, including other recent Netflix flick, War Machine!