“The Rip” is a new low for Netflix’s mindless filmmaking

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...