Tag: Scott Adkins

The Rip (2026) | REVIEW

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in THE RIP — PHOTO: NETFLIX (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Joe Carnahan — Screenplay by Joe Carnahan.

We’re only a few weeks into the new year, and we already have a freshly made and relatively high-profile action thriller to feast on. That high-profile feature is Netflix’s The Rip, which brings together famous friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in a film built around drug money, dirty cops, and snitches. The Rip, from The Grey-filmmaker Joe Carnahan (who, in recent years, has been making plenty of B-movie action films), is the first 2026 film that I am reviewing, and it also happens to be the first 2026 film that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s not high art, but it is exactly the kind of straight-to-streaming action thriller star-vehicle that you would want to chew on in January. 

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REVIEW: John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Keanu Reeves as John Wick and Donnie Yen as Caine in John Wick 4. — PHOTO: Murray Close/Lionsgate.

Directed by Chad Stahelski — Screenplay by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch.

A lot has happened since Chad Stahelski and David Leitch took a Derek Kolstad script with Keanu Reeves attached and successfully revitalized the action genre with an emotional storyline and kick-ass, high-octane action and stunt work. Since then Stahelski’s sequels have consistently upped the ante and topped their own action sequences from chapter to chapter. New locations were revealed, and the world-building just kept on growing eventually introducing everything from a gun sommelier to an Elder who you can only hope to confront in the desert. The films have gone from its gun-fu action and then added in vehicular action and sword fights. With John Wick: Chapter 4, which is the first film in the series not to be written by Derek Kolstad, Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves have once again topped themselves with an incredibly accomplished action epic that is both inventive and almost like a greatest hits for the entire franchise. 

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