Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller The Rip used too many real-life details in its fictionalised narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film-production company owned by Affleck and Damon.
Court filings do not say how much the officers are suing for but the civil complaint says they are seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and lawyers’ fees, as well as a public retraction and correction.
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The Rip features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the film were inspired by a real 2016 case, where police found more than US$21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes home.
A lawyer for Artists Equity declined to comment when reached on Monday by Associated Press. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, a lawyer for Artists Equity, wrote that the film does not purport to tell the true story of that incident or portray real people, which had been stated by a disclaimer in the film’s credits.
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Although Smith and Santana are not named in the film, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving as the lead detective assigned to the real case and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. The film’s inclusion of real details about the case gives the impression that the characters are based on the plaintiffs, the suit said.