Netflix’s new crime thriller The Rip, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, is currently topping the streamer’s top 10 film chart.
Netflix’s gripping thriller The Rip purports to draw from real-life events, but just how much of this pulse-pounding action drama is rooted in fact?
The latest streaming sensation from director Joe Carnahan features Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as a pair of Miami police officers who respond to a tip about a suspected stash house.
Accompanied by members of the Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT), they uncover $20 million hidden in the attic and face the legal requirement to tally every note before departing the premises.
Tension mounts as the squad begins debating what to do with the discovered cash, whilst both law enforcement agencies and cartel figures outside begin getting wind of what’s been found.
The drama reaches a nail-biting climax with a tense showdown that exposes the true perpetrators, but to what extent did The Rip’s events actually occur in real life?, reports the Express.
Is The Rip based on a true story?
Indeed, The Rip’s storyline has genuine roots, as it draws inspiration from the experiences of Chris Casiano, a real Miami police officer who stumbled upon a substantial sum of money whilst serving as commander of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Tactical Narcotics Team.
The precise figure uncovered at the location – disclosed by the film’s conclusion to be $20,650,480 (approximately £15.4 million) – matched exactly what Casiano found, down to the last dollar.
Mirroring the on-screen events, director Carnahan, who maintains a close friendship with Casiano, confirms the cash was “sledgehammered out” of a wall. He also verified that the detail about a barking dog outside was authentic.
“I just thought that was really wild,” he shared with Gold Derby. “I had never experienced a cop story like that.”
Damon’s character, Lieutenant Dane Dumars, is modelled after Casiano, and the heart-wrenching loss of his 10 year old son, Jake, to cancer is also drawn from a tragic real-life event.
Casiano suffered the devastating loss of his own son, Jake William Casiano, to leukaemia in 2021, and the film is a tribute to his memory.
“It was really important to me that [Jake] be the first name you see, because you understood that there was a beating heart at the centre,” Carnahan said.
While The Rip’s basic premise is rooted in reality, the bulk of the actual plot has been significantly fictionalised.
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Specifically, the film’s revelation that corrupt cops are pursuing the money for themselves and the ensuing conflicts didn’t actually occur.
Moreover, the character played by actress Sasha Calle, Desi, who is present at the stash house when the TNT cops conduct their search, was originally a man in the actual incident.
“You’re required to count it twice, actually, by hand. The real rip – Sasha’s character, in real life, that was an older man,” Carnahan clarified.
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“At some point they sat this guy down to start counting. They had to get the guy that owned the place also counting! If you’re off by a dollar, Internal Affairs gets involved. This is a very real thing.”
Given that it wouldn’t be feasible to portray the events in real-time, which actually took about 42 hours, the director explained that their role was to “take the elements of it that I thought were cinematic and parse through it.
“Certain things were expedited, certain things were snipped, and so on.”
The Rip can now be streamed on Netflix.
