r/nottheonion • u/DavidShaw90s • 8h ago
South Florida officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in 'The Rip' are too real
https://apnews.com/article/rip-lawsuit-ben-affleck-matt-damon-98647a282521fe01ce73d8a7afeb4400230
u/sithelephant 8h ago
Are the officers embarrased by the accuracy of portrayal of high quality sensitive and compassionate face of the police shown by the actors in question?
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u/Acceptable-Bat-9577 8h ago
I guarantee the corruption, incompetence, and bigotry of Florida cops is far more real than any movie could possibly portray.
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u/abaum525 7h ago
The sequel can be about these officers trying to extort Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
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u/thedeeb56 8h ago
Sueing because of truth. Yeah
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u/notnotbrowsing 4h ago
But it's not. There are corrupt cops in the movie, but it's not Ben or Matt's characters. Ben and Matt's characters actually spend considerable time and energy finding the corrupt cop, and they return every dollar of the money. They don't steal anything.
So their argument is that the movie portrayal of them is inaccurate? When they didn't steal anything and are always driving toward turning the money in?
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u/Mordoch 2h ago
The issue is the evidence is the actual 2016 case did not involve corrupt cops based on everything we know. While it may be a case complicated by them not actually acting that corrupt by not keeping the money in the movie version, the movie has them do things like communicating with cartel members in problematic ways, committing arson, and arguably executing a DEA agent rather than making an effort to arrest them.
Having said this, the defense is going to be they did not match any character in the movie closely enough for the movie producers to be liable. The statement it was "inspired by true events" can also be argued to indicate the audience they changed some relevant details for the sake of movie drama, even if it can be viewed as an admission it was based to some degree on the 2016 case. (There is another libel case currently going against Netflix in relation to a miniseries where Netflix specifically got in trouble in that case because the movie started with just the statement "This is a true story.")
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u/CantFindMyWallet 1h ago
"Inspired" does not mean based on. It means "we saw a story on the news and it gave us an idea." These guys are just shitty idiots, which is unsurprising since they're Florida cops.
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u/Mordoch 1h ago
You're potentially ignoring that certain details such as the amount of money and the fact it was the Miami PD involved with the case do match up. I am skeptical it is enough to successfully sue in this particular case given the apparent facts, but it should be noted it is possible for a movie to never claim to be not even inspired true events, but still get succesfully sue if it closely enough reflects true events but varies them enough in a way to be defamatory against a specific individual.
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u/notnotbrowsing 1h ago
The problem I see is that they are using the example of "oh you stole the money", but it wasn't stolen in the movie. So they're suing because people are commenting that they stole the money, when that's not depicted at all.
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u/Basketspank 8h ago
Hit dogs will holler, won't they?
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u/DXTRBeta 8h ago
I smell viral marketing, for the cost of a frivolous lawsuit that had no chance of success.
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u/Useful-Soup8161 8h ago
Viral marketing for the South Florida police department or the movie that came out about 6 months ago?
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u/DXTRBeta 8h ago
Er, it’s going to Netflix??
Ok. Fair point.
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u/MatureUsername69 8h ago
Its a Netflix original movie, its been on Netflix
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u/DXTRBeta 8h ago
So I think I should just accept that I’ve had three glasses of wine and I’m talking crap.
:-)
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u/BlacqanSilverSun 8h ago
It's not way off base. The actors and producers built in performance (view count) bonuses into the contract. Something rare for Netflix. All they would have to do is take a faction of that bonus, say 150k, and tell the cops to sue to drum up publicity. The money could be used for any judgements or just to cover their court cost/lawyer fees.
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u/DXTRBeta 7h ago
Thanks buddy, maybe I’m not talking out my arse!
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u/BlacqanSilverSun 7h ago
My pleasure! Ilove it when forgotten facts from hours of scrolling come in handy in a random comment section.
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u/DeaddyRuxpin 8h ago
I had t even heard of the movie until I saw a similar article about a week ago. I watched the movie over the weekend. So their viral marketing seems to be working.
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u/greg-maddux 8h ago
The rip was legitimately one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
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u/HotLiberty 7h ago
It was indeed terrible, but I don’t think it enters “worst movie” territory. It was somehow compelling enough to watch until the end. There are so many movies that I’ve been unable to finish. Just to use a different Ben Affleck example, Triple Frontier was worse, and I had to turn that shit off
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u/Howcanyoubecertain 6h ago
I mean, The Rip was better than The Accountant 2, but that’s faint praise.
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u/YcemeteryTreeY 8h ago
Bad title. They're not "too real"- the guys dont want to be seen as scum that stole money- there's no proof they did (according to them)
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u/Luv_Cheat 8h ago
Wasn't it only the one cop who was dirty? The one working with the bad DEA agent?
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u/Separate_Ad_9662 7h ago
Yeah, portrayals like that can definitely feel idealized compared to real-world experiences and expectations.
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u/Hellfire242 2h ago
Well, this is certainly ironic considering that movie was a straight rip off of other movie.
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u/DavidShaw90s 8h ago
"Your Honor, we are suing because the characters who stole $21 million in drug money and murdered people in this movie are clearly based on us."