Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997). They wouldn't write together again until The Last Duel (2021). Both Affleck and Damon are known for their acting careers, having been in a lot of major motion pictures, both good and bad. They tend to do good work and in 2022, Affleck and Damon started their own film company called Artists Equity. They started producing their own projects, starting with Air (2023), in which the two starred together again, something until lately they rarely did. At first, they wanted to have their own identities, following their Oscar win. Now, it seems as if they don't care and will work together over and over again. The two have a great chemistry. The two bounce off each other rather well. As an acting duo, the two have a dynamic that can be very compelling.
Written and directed by Joe Carnahan, this is a thriller that moves into action territory in its final act. Carnahan is good at those kinds of films. Affleck has worked with Carnahan before with Smokin' Aces (2007), which was a crime thriller that wasn't that well reviewed. However, Carnahan has directed films that have been amazing. My favorite of Carnahan is The Grey (2012), which is in my opinion was worthy of being nominated for an Oscar. His career has included some interesting titles, but one that I think is worthy of mentioning is Copshop (2021). That film feels a lot like a template for this one. Copshop is basically about a police officer who becomes trapped in one location, as that place comes under siege by criminals and there being corrupt cops who may or may not be in on the siege. This film has that template. What made Copshop more distinctive is that Carnahan's 2021 film makes us care or invests us into its characters more than this one. Copshop invested us into the bad guys of that film. This film doesn't invest us, mainly because the film spends the majority of the time questioning who the bad guy even is.
Matt Damon stars as Dane Dumans, a lieutenant in the Miami-Dade Police Department. He's part of a team of cops, known as the Tactical Narcotics Team, or TNT. The group is comprised of about half-dozen or so police officers. The leader or one of the major members is a woman named Captain Jackie Velez. The inciting incident is her murder. Dane and the rest of the TNT are then questioned about it. There's even a question of whether Dane was the one who did it. A lot of the film becomes whether Dane is a good guy or a bad guy, if he's the one who killed Jackie or not. As such, we're purposefully kept at a distance from him.
Ben Affleck co-stars as JD Byrne, a sergeant and a detective who is also part of the TNT group. We don't get much about him, except that he can be a bit of a hothead. Unlike Dane, JD is more likely to lose his temper. He's perhaps not as smart as Dane. It's probably due to him not being as informed. If Dane is the brains, then JD appears to be the brawn of the group. He does have a brother who is a FBI agent, played by Scott Adkins, who is investigating TNT. He has a bit of a sibling rivalry with his brother, but that's a minor aspect. Other than Affleck doing his Affleck shtick, there's not much more about this character that we learn. With all the talk about corrupt cops, we do get the impression that he might not be one of them, but the film never expands upon JD to give us more depth or insight into him. That's cause the film wants some suspicion to be on him at one point too.
Steven Yeun (Beef and The Walking Dead) also co-stars as Mike Ro, a detective on the TNT. We don't get much about his character either. The only thing we get is that he's suspicious of Dane and this whole situation, especially when Dane takes them on a late-night assignment that feels dubious once the assignment gets in the thick of it. The film leaves Mike as a bit of a blank. The film had the opportunity to provide insight into this character. After the TNT go to a house in Miami, investigating it as being a drug house or trap house, they find a young woman living there named Desi, played by Sasha Calle (On Swift Horses and The Flash). Desi talks to Mike the most after the initial encounter. We could've gotten insight into Mike through Desi reaching out to him, but that doesn't really happen.
There are two other female characters in this film, but I feel like they get really short shrift that they're almost not worthy of mentioning. I probably wouldn't mention either if it weren't for the fact that one of those other female characters is Numa Baptiste, played by Teyana Taylor who was just nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for One Battle After Another (2025). Taylor is such an amazing actress and singular talent, as well as such an on-screen presence that her Oscar nomination isn't surprising. Taylor was cast in this film before One Battle After Another was released. More than likely she was cast due to her incredible performance in A Thousand and One (2023), which was probably her best film, which is why I don't understand why this film would waste her, essentially having her do nothing.
Kyle Chandler (Manchester by the Sea and The Wolf of Wall Street) gets a more outstanding role than Taylor. He plays a DEA agent named Matty. Chandler is an incredible and veteran actor, having been in the business for over 30 years. I don't mind his role being more outstanding or notable. Yet, technically, we spend more time with Numa than Matty, so I don't understand why both couldn't have been outstanding in their own ways. However, the film does have a pretty energetic and well done chase scene involving Chandler's character at the end that some might find entertaining.
Rated R for violence and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 53 mins.
Available on Netflix.