Two South Florida police officers declare Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s current motion thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, inflicting hurt to the officers’ private and skilled reputations, in line with a defamation lawsuit.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court docket earlier this month in opposition to Artists Equity, a movie manufacturing firm owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how a lot the officers are suing for, however the civil criticism says they’re searching for compensatory damages, punitive damages and legal professional charges, in addition to a public retraction and correction.
“The Rip” options Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the film have been impressed by a real 2016 case, the place police discovered over $21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes residence.
Affleck and Damon have stated whereas selling the movie that the story is loosely based mostly on accounts from Miami-Dade Police Capt. Chris Casiano, who served as a technical advisor on the movie. Damon advised The Associated Press throughout a January interview that he and Affleck hung out with Casiano and different narcotics officers in preparation for the movie.
“We really wanted to kind of understand what those dynamics were like,” Damon stated. “I mean, these units are very tight because they’re really putting their lives in each other’s hands, and they’re doing something that’s very dangerous.”
An legal professional for Artists Equity declined to remark when reached Monday by the AP. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, an legal professional for Artists Equity, wrote that the movie doesn’t purport to inform the true story of that incident or painting real individuals, which had been said by a disclaimer in the movie’s credit.
Although Smith and Santana aren’t named in the movie and weren’t concerned in its manufacturing, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving because the lead detective assigned to the real case, and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative workforce. The movie’s inclusion of real details concerning the case gives the look that the characters are based mostly on the plaintiffs, the swimsuit stated.
This, the lawsuit claims, has given associates, members of the family and colleagues the impression that the plaintiffs dedicated the felony acts that seem in the movie, which embody (SPOILER ALERT) conspiring to steal seized drug cash, murdering a supervising officer, speaking with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighborhood, endangering the lives of civilians, repeatedly violating core law-enforcement protocols and executing a federal agent moderately than making an arrest.
Walker wrote in March that the plaintiffs haven’t even recognized which specific character is meant to be based mostly on Smith or Santana, so even when “The Rip” was truly a few real-life narcotics workforce, there’s no solution to join any of the characters to the plaintiffs.
“The Rip,” directed by Joe Carnahan, debuted in January on Netflix. It’s presently rated 78% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.