Kenneth Glad
A court fight over a police thriller is testing how recognizable a fictional story can become. The dispute centers on a film inspired by a real investigation and two officers who say the result damaged them.
Two South Florida law enforcement officers say Netflix’s The Rip made a fictional corruption plot look too much like a real Miami-area investigation that they helped lead.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana have sued Artists Equity, the production company owned by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, in federal court in Miami, according to Associated Press.
The officers allege the film harmed their personal and professional reputations. AP writes that they are seeking damages, attorney fees, and a public correction and retraction.
Real case at issue
The movie stars Affleck and Damon as South Florida officers who discover millions of dollars inside a house.
It draws partly on a 2016 Miami Lakes investigation in which police found more than 21 million dollars tied to a suspected marijuana trafficker.
According to TV 2, the lawsuit says Santana was the lead detective on the real case, while Smith supervised the investigative team.
Neither man is named in the movie, and neither worked on it. Their complaint argues that the real-case details made the fictional plot personally damaging despite the absence of their names.
Company cites disclaimer
AP reports that the lawsuit points to scenes involving officers stealing seized drug money, killing a supervisor, communicating with cartel members, committing arson, endangering civilians, violating police rules, and executing a federal agent instead of making an arrest.
The officers allege that relatives, friends and colleagues came away believing they had committed crimes similar to those depicted in the film.
Damon told AP in January: “We really wanted to kind of understand what those dynamics were like. 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.”
Artists Equity declined to comment to AP. In a March 19 response, attorney Leita Walker said the film does not claim to portray real people or tell the true story of the incident, and pointed to a disclaimer in the credits.
Sources: Associated Press, TV 2
