Wondering about Dane Dumars’s tattoos in The Rip (A.W.T.G.G. and W.A.A.W.B.) or how Desi ended up with millions? We explain the meaning behind Matt Damon’s ink and the legal reality of the movie’s ending.
A good movie should leave the viewer feeling satisfied for having grasped its most fascinating nuances. And The Rip, the anticipated 2026 Netflix film starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, does a great job of highlighting the most significant facets and details in a way that won’t escape attentive viewers.
The film tells a story inspired by real events, focusing on a Miami Tactical Narcotics Team raid on a house believed to be a stash house for a local drug cartel. Between identifying corrupt officers and using clever strategies to uncover who killed the unit’s leader, Captain Jackie Velez, The Rip plunges us into an extreme situation, with suspicions surrounding the main protagonists and a $20 million loot keeping everyone on high alert.
Although the film attempts to provide satisfying explanations for its many details, a couple of hidden aspects have sparked numerous questions from viewers. These are two details that might seem small but reveal a lot about the characters’ nature and the plot’s practicalities: the tattoos on the hands of Dane Dumars (played by Matt Damon) and Desi’s final happiness as she embraces the police after receiving specific news about her role in the story.
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The Meaning of Matt Damon’s Tattoos in The Rip: A.W.T.G.G. and W.A.A.W.B.
From the very first scenes of The Rip, attention falls on Lieutenant Dumars’ (Matt Damon) hands. The camera lingers on the two tattooed inscriptions on each of the protagonist’s hands—two acronyms whose meaning is initially unknown: on his left hand, we read A.W.T.G.G., and on the right, W.A.A.W.B. During the first part of the film, these letters remain a mystery, almost like a secret code among officers. But the truth is far more intimate and painful.
When Dumars interrogates Desi (Sasha Calle), she notices the tattoos and asks what they mean. At that moment, Desi is highly suspicious of the intentions of the police officers in front of her, so Dumars’ answer becomes a way to challenge his moral integrity. It is in that scene that Dumars reveals the answer to the mystery: A.W.T.G.G. stands for ‘Are we the good guys?’ and W.A.A.W.B. means ‘We are and always will be.’
Desi’s sharp response to that revelation is a question intended to wound Dumars: she suggests he needs external validation to know if he is a ‘good guy.’ Dumars doesn’t respond at that moment, reflecting a precise tension in the plot of The Rip, where we as viewers are also beginning to suspect which members of the police team are actually corrupt or prone to skimming thousands of dollars from the cartel’s loot.
The truth, however, is uncovered at the end of the film, when we gain certainty that Dumars is a man of absolute integrity. As he explains, those phrases are vital to him because they remind him of the final conversation he had with his son, who died of cancer at the age of ten. It was the child who asked if they were ‘the good guys,’ and Dumars’ response was the reassuring promise of a loving father: ‘We are and always will be.’
Therefore, those words are not on Dumars’ hands to remind him of an existential doubt, as Desi provocatively suggested. Dumars’ integrity is unwavering. Those tattoos are the mirror of his values: while his work is important, family is his absolute priority. The wounds of his personal history are literally etched into his skin, and he carries them wherever he goes.
These tattoos are more than just a memory; they are Dumars’ moral compass. In a world of corruption where even his colleagues lose their way, he carries the promise made to his son on his hands: to remain one of the ‘good guys,’ at all costs. This detail has a profound connection to reality: the film is dedicated to Jake William Casiano, the son of the film’s technical consultant and former police officer Chris Casiano, who passed away from leukemia in 2021. Director Joe Carnahan intended for this real-life grief to become the beating heart of Damon’s character.
The Ending of The Rip: Why Does Desi Get All That Money?
Many viewers were surprised by the final scene in which Desi, the owner of the house turned into a cartel stash house, erupts in a shout of joy and embraces the police—the very same officers she had been suspicious of throughout the entire film. While the movie doesn’t dwell on the bureaucratic details, the explanation lies in the role Desi played from the very beginning.
Desi was not merely a passive victim. As revealed at the end of The Rip, she was the secret informant who had contacted Captain Jackie Velez to report the cash cache. The message Jackie sent to Dumars before her death wasn’t just the result of her own investigation; it was information she had received directly from Desi. Desi’s reason for tipping off the authorities against the cartel was purely financial: according to the informant code (frequently cited in Florida-based police procedurals), those who decisively collaborate in the seizure of illegal assets are entitled to a percentage of the recovered value. As stated in the original Florida Statutes on Offences Related to Financial Transactions:
- A law enforcement agency conducting any investigation of a violation of this chapter may pay a reward to an individual who provides original information that leads to a recovery of a criminal fine, civil penalty, or forfeiture.
- The law enforcement agency shall determine the amount of a reward under this section. The law enforcement agency may not pay more than the amount of reward authorized for similar activity by any federal law or guideline in effect at the time the information described in subsection (1) was provided.
Desi knew there was a staggering amount of money hidden in that house. She was also facing severe economic hardship following the death of her grandmother and ongoing legal battles with her sister over their inheritance. In other words, Desi had no strong motivation to remain loyal to the cartel, and a percentage of the seized cash was exactly what she needed to turn her life around.
When Desi has that explosion of happiness at the end of the film, it’s because she has just discovered that Dumars’ team has officially recognized her role as the key informant for the seizure. This was a detail Desi had doubted from the start, considering that the person she gave the information to—Jackie—was dead, and it wasn’t clear how much the officers at the scene knew about her tip-off. The cash reward and FBI protection represent the ‘happy ending’ for the only truly innocent character in the film and serve as proof of Dumars’ and Byrne’s moral integrity. After losing her home in a fire during the confrontation, Desi receives justice and a new life, confirming the film’s central thesis: in a story of betrayal and greed, those who have the courage to do the right thing are rewarded in the end.
