Several times throughout Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s new Netflix police procedural thriller, “The Rip,” Damon’s character — the disheartened and disillusioned Lieutenant Dane Dumars, who heads up a Miami-based tactical narcotics team — glances at his phone. It seems like a curious inclusion, given that the only thing to see on Dane’s phone is a picture of his late son, who died of childhood cancer. The loss inevitably took a toll on Dane, and in most movies, this would be the kind of foundational character detail expressed once early in the film, something that would give reason to all of Dane’s ensuing actions and behavior.
But that assumes the viewer is paying attention.
