Ben Affleck as Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne and Matt Damon as Lieutenant Dane Dumars in 'The Rip.' Claire Folger/Netflix Logo text Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are facing a defamation lawsuit from two Miami-Dade police officers who claim in a legal filing this week that the Hollywood A-listers’ action film The Rip blends fictionalized details with hard facts from the officers’ real-life experiences too liberally, causing major reputational damage to them personally and professionally.
The Rip, an action thriller about Miami narcotics officers who become corrupt as they’re consumed by greed and division, was written and directed by Joe Carnahan and developed with Michael McGraw. The story draws from the account of Miami-Dade County Police Captain Chris Casiano, a longtime friend of Carnahan.
In the film, a narcotics team in Miami discovers millions in cash hidden inside a drug cartel stash house during a raid. Paranoia, greed, and suspicion among the squad follow, fracturing their loyalty and soon eroding any remaining trust. The thriller was released on Netflix in January to a positive reception.
On May 7, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s deputies Jonathan Santana and Jason Smith filed the defamation suit against Damon and Affleck’s production company, Artists Equity, claiming that events they were involved in during a series of 2016 drug busts in South Florida are recreated in The Rip in ways that depict them as “dirty cops” — and that this portrayal has caused “substantial harm” to their reputations.
The lawsuit does not specify the amount Santana and Smith are seeking in damages, but the filing requests compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees, a public retraction, and a correction.
While promoting the film, Damon, Affleck, and Carnahan all stated that The Rip is based on a real-life case involving Miami police. The Miami Lakes drug case that the film fictionalizes involved approximately $20 million being seized after the cash was discovered inside a residential attic. Santana was the lead detective assigned to the real case; Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. In the case, they say some of the details are so close, it impacted their daily lives.
“When you rip something, you’re stealing something,” Santana told 7 News Miami in an interview this week. “We never stole a dollar.” He added that since the film’s release, colleagues who have seen the movie have asked him things like, “How many buckets of money did you steal?”
In the suit, the deputies allege that Affleck and Damon’s production company should have compensated Santana, Smith, and the other officers involved in the real case as consultants. Instead, Artists Equity paid a member of the force who was not part of that investigation: Casiano is listed as a technical advisor on the film, and the two Oscar-winning stars spent time with him and other narcotics officers to prepare for the shoot.
Ignacio Alvarez, whose Miami-based firm is representing the two deputies, was unable to immediately speak with The Hollywood Reporter when contacted for comment on Tuesday. He did, however, explain the case to 7 News Miami.
“If an individual got paid for the story, then they should be compensated for being present,” he said, adding later, “My clients are now hurt for the rest of their lives with everybody perceiving that they’re dirty.”
Artists Equity legal representative Leita Walker wrote in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter that the film does not purport to tell the true story of the 2016 Miami drug bust or portray real-life people. She noted that this fact is clearly stated in a disclaimer in the film’s credits.
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