The insane true story that inspired Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's new crime drama.

Everyone is talking about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's new Netflix movie, The Rip, which finally reunites the long-time besties in a gritty, high-stakes crime thriller. 

It's essentially a pressure-cooker "buddy cop" movie where the buddy part is put to the ultimate test. 

When Captain Jackie Velez of the Miami-Dade Police is murdered, a cloud of suspicion falls over her elite Tactical Narcotics Team. Amidst swirling rumours of corruption and internal betrayal, her second-in-command, Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon), leads his squad to a nondescript house in Hialeah following a mysterious tip.

Watch: The trailer for The Rip. Article continues after video.

What they find in the attic — $20 million in cartel cash — transforms a standard investigation into an evening of tension and distrust. As the night deepens, the team becomes trapped inside the house, surrounded by an empty neighbourhood controlled by the cartel. While mysterious threats pour in over the landline and gunfire erupts from the shadows, the detectives begin to turn on one another. 

With the lines between "good cop" and "crooked cop" blurring, and a DEA agent entering the fray with his own agenda, the squad must figure out who killed their Captain before they all become the next casualties of the stash. In this game of psychological warfare, the only thing more dangerous than the cartel outside is the person standing next to you.

It's a wild ride. But what's even wilder is that the movie is actually based on a true story. 

Image: Netflix

While it's noted in the opening credits of the movie, the film's writer and director, Joe Carnahan, has also addressed the real events that inspired The Rip. And it was actually his friend, Officer Chris Casiano, who lived through the real-life raid.

"The 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," he told Tudum. 

While being inspired by part of Casiano's life and work, the film also drew inspiration from fictional classic films. 

"My enduring love for those classic '70's cop thrillers that really valued the character and interpersonal relationships and became touchstones of that era," he said. "Films like Serpico and Prince of The City and more recently, Michael Mann's Heat."

The film's "rip" — police slang for a major seizure — is inspired by a real 2016 raid in Miami Lakes led by Casiano. The target was Luis Hernandez-Gonzalez, who spent years running a North Miami gardening shop called Blossom Experience.

On the surface, it was a local business, but in reality, it served as a high-traffic hub for marijuana growers from across the country. While investigators had him on their radar for a while, they never expected the scale of what was tucked away in his home. In real life, the raid uncovered $24 million in cash hidden behind a false wall in an attic, stuffed into 24 orange Home Depot buckets. 

Image: Netflix

Just like in the movie, the officers were required by protocol to stay on-site and count every dollar by hand — a process that took many gruelling hours while they were being watched by the homeowner's surveillance cameras.

The legal fallout for the real-world "kingpin" was just as dramatic as the bust. Initially hit with state-level trafficking charges, Hernandez-Gonzalez was eventually caught in a federal net after agents tracked a complex web of "structured" bank deposits designed to fly under the government's radar.

By 2018, Hernandez-Gonzalez was sentenced to 65 months in federal prison for financial crimes.

While the movie adds a lot of Hollywood tension (like the cartel shootout and the FBI drama), the emotional core is deeply personal. 

Matt Damon's character is modelled after Casiano, right down to a subplot about grieving the loss of a young son. The film is also dedicated to Casiano's son, Jake, who passed away from leukemia in 2021, turning this intense action flick into a moving tribute to a real-life Miami hero.

For my full review of the film, click here.

Feature Image: Netflix.