How “The Rip” Writer/Director Joe Carnahan Turned a Real Heist Into his Gripping Ben Affleck/Matt Damon Caper

There’s a moment in The Rip, the newest direct-to-Netflix release, written and directed by Joe Carnahan, that is quiet, devastating, and profoundly human, when everything else seems to fall away. The gunfire, the paranoia, the ticking-clock tension of a crime thriller suddenly recede, leaving only grief, memory, and connection. It’s a scene that lingers long after the film ends, and it encapsulates what makes Joe Carnahan’s latest film feel so distinctive: visceral yet intimate, brutal yet tender, propulsive yet deeply reflective.

When I sat down with Carnahan to discuss his experience directing The Rip, I began where any viewer who’s seen the film likely would: with admiration. The movie is undeniably dark, but it never pushes the audience away. Instead, it draws us closer, keeping us engaged even as it explores loss, betrayal, and moral compromise. “I think the key is to always involve an audience,” Carnahan told me. “They’ve got to care about the people they’re watching. They have to have a rooting interest in the people on screen.”

That philosophy is the backbone of The Rip, and it begins with a story that is far more personal than its crime-thriller exterior might suggest.

A Story Born From Grief

At its core, The Rip originated from a real-life story Carnahan heard years ago from a close friend, one of the people involved in the actual heist that inspired the film. “He was part of the actual rip,” Carnahan explained. “In the real world, it was an older Colombian guy, and a lot of that stuff [included in the narrative] is still close to the truth, as authentically as we could.” But Carnahan didn’t stop at adapting a crime story. He made a pivotal choice to weave in something far more intimate: his friend’s devastating loss of a child. Matt Damon’s character, Dane, carries that grief throughout the film, and Carnahan was deeply conscious of the responsibility that came with fictionalizing such pain. “I think part of me was looking to help my friend, as clumsily as it may have appeared, through his grief,” he said. “Or give him a totem in some way…something that would live on.”

Crucially, Carnahan sought his friend’s blessing before moving forward. “I didn’t want to exploit the memory of his child,” he emphasized. “I wanted to give him something to pour that into, if it was possible.” That intention shaped the emotional texture of the film. While The Rip operates in shadowy moral territory, it is also suffused with empathy and a quiet sense of hope. “It came from the best parts of us,” Carnahan reflected. “The parts of us that grieve, the parts of us that hurt, the parts of us that agonize. And, yeah, there’s darkness to it, but there’s also this great undercurrent of hope.”

Finding the Film’s Tone

Balancing that emotional depth with the mechanics of a high-stakes thriller was one of Carnahan’s central challenges. For him, tone is not something imposed through style alone. It grows organically from character. “To me, the interpersonal was always the engine underneath it all,” he said. “Once you do that, the rest of those building blocks are really technical screenwriting.”

Carnahan described the film’s tonal architecture as a kind of genre mosaic. “Now it’s this Hitchcockian thing. Now it’s an Agatha Christie thing. Now it’s a Michael Mann thing,” he said, laughing. “Once we got through the structural aspect, the actual writing of the screenplay took me about five weeks.” By the time production began, Carnahan knew these characters intimately. “I knew their voices,” he said. “I knew what they were about.” That clarity carried through post-production as well, thanks in large part to his longtime collaborator and editor Kevin Hale. “Kev’s always like, ‘I’m looking for the heart of a scene,’” Carnahan said. “There’s a thesis to every scene.”

Casting Without Preconceptions

Despite working with some of the biggest names in film, Carnahan insists he never writes with specific actors in mind. “I’m a big believer in just writing the character,” he said. “The right actor will come along and plug themselves in and make it better.” That openness paid off. The ensemble chemistry in The Rip feels lived-in and authentic, something Carnahan believes audiences instinctively recognize. “You felt the team spirit,” he said. “And that’s the best trick you can play, is getting the audience to invest in the people on screen.”

When I jokingly referenced the promising careers of the film’s “young actors,” Carnahan deadpanned, “Yeah, whatever. Matt Affleck and Ben Damon. You may hear from them.”

Turning Limitations Into Strengths

One of the film’s most striking qualities is how much tension it generates within confined spaces. Large portions of The Rip unfold in tight interiors like vans, houses, and garages, settings that might intimidate some filmmakers. “It never scared me,” Carnahan said. “If it’s compelling, it doesn’t matter where the hell you are. I could shoot this at a landfill, and it’s going to be interesting.” Rather than treating those constraints as obstacles, Carnahan embraced them. “If you approach it glass half empty, it’s a problem,” he explained. “Glass half full? We can do some really cool shit here.” The result is a claustrophobic intimacy that heightens paranoia and suspense. “There’s an intimacy to it,” he said. “And in that intimacy is the paranoia, the fear, all intertwined.”

Playing with Perception

One standout sequence, an unbearably tense street encounter, embodies Carnahan’s minimalist approach to suspense. “It’s not elaborate,” he noted. “That’s literally five camera setups.” What elevates the scene is performance and audience expectation, particularly when it comes to Matt Damon. “Now you’re trading on Matt Damon, the movie star,” Carnahan said. “He wouldn’t do something like this…what’s going on?” That tension between character and cultural perception becomes a tool. “There’s a lot of little points on that voodoo doll that you can poke at,” he said, “that elicit a response from the audience.”

Carnahan is quick to downplay his own directorial authority, insisting that much of his direction happens on the page. “A lot of my directing is in the screenwriting,” he said. Sometimes, a single note is enough. He recalled one moment when he told Damon to simply look back at a house. “And he understood, this is the ‘is anybody gonna see me if I shoot this guy?’ moment.”

Collaboration and Craft

Carnahan’s collaboration with cinematographer Juan Miguel Asperoz and editor Kevin Hale is rooted in decades of friendship. “We’re all in our 50’s,” he said. “And yet we still approach it with this childlike enthusiasm.” They talk about movies, about their kids, about life, and those conversations inform the film’s visual language. “We’re committing to shooting the movie a certain way,” Carnahan said. “And not going off of that.” That commitment allows for discovery rather than chaos. “It’s through that process of being really thorough that allows for exploration,” he explained. “As opposed to just free-wheeling it.”

The Beach, the Ending, and What Lingers

When I asked which moment was most rewarding, Carnahan immediately pointed to the final scene of the beach. “That was a real joy,” he said. Originally longer, the scene evolved into something quieter and more profound. “You just rely on the unspoken,” he said. “I knew that would be a big moment, these two old friends of 40 years sitting on a beach together.”

The child in that scene, Jackie, carries personal significance. “That’s my son,” Carnahan revealed. “Those personal touches are important to me.” For Carnahan, that fusion of personal truth and collaborative craft is where films find their power. “When it comes from the interpersonal,” he said, “it’s always better. It’s always more powerful.”

Making the Movie the Right Way

Unlike many of his earlier, more precarious independent productions, The Rip benefited from studio support that allowed the film to be made properly, but not extravagantly. “We had the means and the resources to make this movie the way it should be made,” Carnahan said. “But it was never an extravagance.” The shoot lasted 36 days, a pace Carnahan prefers. “I like that natural propulsion,” he said, “I’ll never do a 100-day movie. You lose momentum.”

Everything that was built was used. “The asks were never over the top. We built the set, we built the stash house set, we built the garage in Jersey. Exteriors were in Harbor City, in Long Beach, California. We did a little bit in Miami. It was perfect. It was exactly what it needed. Everything we built, we shot. There was no excess.”

On the final cut of the film, Carnahan expressed his delight that the studio shared his vision. “It’s rare that you get a moment like this, where all of us, Ben and Matt, Artists Equity, Netflix, and I, we all got our favorite version of the movie. I think we all had that wonderful symmetry of agreement…It’s like, okay, great, this is the best version of the film.”

What He Hopes Audiences Take Away

Carnahan’s hopes for audiences are refreshingly simple. “I just want them to see something that they love,” he said. “I want them to go, ‘I want to watch it again because I want to see how much I missed.” The film is dense with subtle cues and quiet signposts, rewarding close attention. But above all, Carnahan wants viewers to feel their time was well spent. “We gave them two hours of their time well spent,” he said. “That’s really the goal.”

In an era dominated by noise and excess, The Rip stands out for its restraint and emotional honesty. Beneath the crime and tension lies something deeper: a meditation on grief, loyalty, and the fragile bonds that hold people together. It’s a film that doesn’t just entertain, it remembers.

Watch The Rip streaming now on Netflix.

 Featured image: RIP. (L to R) Matt Damon as Lieutenant Dane Dumars and Ben Affleck as Det Sergeant JD Byrne in RIP. Cr. Claire Folger/Netflix © 2024.