Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have come a long way since their first appearance in a movie together — from starting out as uncredited extras in Field of Dreams to winning an Oscar for Good Will Hunting and on to their upcoming reunion for a new Netflix project, a gritty crime thriller from the streaming giant that’ll be released this fall.
There’s no official release date yet, but it’s got a great title — RIP, which, given that the movie primarily involves Miami cops, is a direct reference to “ripping off” bad guys by taking their stuff. Confiscating drugs or weapons during an official seizure is also known as a rip, while obviously, in the context of a crime story, the title can double as an acronym to signify having shuffled off this mortal coil.
The plot: Trust among a group of Miami cops starts to fray after they discover millions of dollars in cash in a derelict stash house. Outside forces eventually learn about the seizure, and then everything gets called into question — including just who exactly the cops decide they can rely on. “Working with Matt and Ben, and having two distinctly talented filmmakers as both creative allies and the studio heads, wound up being the best of both worlds,” writer-director Joe Carnahan said in a Netflix promotional interview.
“I’ve never had as easy an experience on a movie as I had on RIP. They took exceptionally good care of me and backed my decisions every step of the way.”
The movie is being produced by Artists Equity, the artist-led studio that Damon and Affleck founded three years ago. Joining the actors, who’ve been friends since elementary school, are Steven Yeun, Kyle Chandler, Teyana Taylor, and Sasha Calle.
“RIP came out of a deeply personal experience that my friend went through, both as a father and as head of tactical narcotics for the Miami Dade police department,” Carnahan continued. “It’s inspired in part by his life and then, by my enduring love for those classic ‘70’s cop thrillers that really valued the character and interpersonal relationships and became touchstones of that era — films like Serpico and Prince Of The City and more recently, Michael Mann’s Heat.”
The film is also a continuation of the long partnership and friendship of Damon and Affleck, who met as neighbors in Cambridge, Mass.; as Damon once recounted to Conan O’Brien, Affleck stuck up for Damon in a schoolyard fight. The pair became inseparable after that. In addition to Good Will Hunting, their work has included films like Dogma, The Last Duel, and more recently Air — the latter of which told the story of Nike’s pursuit of Michael Jordan, a partnership that would change the world of sports and contemporary culture.
