Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s crime drama, ‘Dope Thief,’ stars Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura as Ray and Manny, two best friends who have found a unique profession for themselves. The duo poses as DEA agents and conducts raids in the joints of low-level drug dealers. The idea is to take them by surprise and get whatever money and drugs they might have without causing any suspicion about their identity. They sound like the real deal, and that’s what the whole thing rests on. Moreover, they are also careful not to mess anything up or leave anything that could be traced back to them. Most importantly, they never try to catch a big fish because it could take them down with itself. Eventually, however, this is exactly what costs them everything. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Ray and Manny Add a New Guy to Their Operation
Things had been going pretty well for Ray and Manny, who had been doing it for more than fourteen months. So far, they managed to raid enough places to make decent money. As a backing, they have a Vietnamese guy named Son who vets the places for them as much as he can. For this, they give him a cut and the drugs they find on-site, as he is better placed to circulate them in the market and get money out of it. Despite this success, Manny is a little nervous, and it is he who suggests that they should have a third person standing by the door, just as a backup in case something untoward happens. Against Ray’s wishes and protests, Manny brings Rick into the fold.
Rick was a low-life criminal with whom Ray crossed paths years ago when both of them were in the same prison at the same time. They were not particularly friendly, but they grew to respect each other’s boundaries. Later, Ray got out, but Rick went to prison again, and this time, he was in close accommodation with Ray’s father, Bart, who had been in prison for a very long time. He and Ray also have a difficult relationship, particularly because of Bart’s own criminal history, which includes physically abusing Ray’s mother and leaving him abandoned to be raised by his girlfriend, Theresa.
Apart from being involved in a very stressful situation that could end with his death, Ray has another trauma to process. In flashbacks, we see him with a girl named Marietta. She was his girlfriend when he was a teenager, but one day, they got in a car crash when he was driving. It seems that Marietta didn’t survive the crash, and that is what led Ray to go to prison the first time around. This is also where he met Manny, and the two forged a friendship that would eventually turn into a business partnership. At the same time, Theresa is trying to get Bart out of prison on compassionate release, which is something that Ray is still trying to figure out his emotions about.
Things Get Out of Control for Ray and Manny
While Ray and Manny are steady guys who know what they are doing, Rick turns out to be a nervous wreck on drugs. He suggests the duo reach out of their turf (which makes sense as they seem to have exhausted every corner of Philadelphia) and target a place that he knows about. Later, when the trio reaches the place, everything falls apart incredibly quickly. It turns out that Rick had no idea what the place was all about, as he hadn’t done his due diligence and did not vet the place. Next, he is entirely unconvincing as a DEA agent, and despite being told repeatedly to have a steady hand on his gun, he fires it and kills one of the men in the house. Bullets fire as Rick shoots a woman (called Mina) and kills another man while taking a bullet himself and then bleeding out on the floor.
All in all, the whole thing goes terribly out of hand, so Ray figures that they might as well salvage whatever they can. He gets a bag full of cash and a stack of what looks like drugs in liquid form stuffed in aloe vera bottles. As they leave, the entire building blows up. Manny is disturbed by the way things have turned out, but before the duo can process what has happened, they get a call on their radio. Ray realizes that he dropped his set at the site, and the person (the owner of the operation, most likely) is on the other side. He threatens to kill them unless they return his money and drugs. Instead, they throw the other set out and run. Meanwhile, the real federal officers who sent Mina undercover try to figure out who blew up their operation. So far, they only manage to find the places where they have wreaked havoc, but with Mina adamant about keeping her cover, it is clear that they are not going to let this go so easily.
Ray and Manny Try to Cover Their Tracks
With hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of drugs in their possession, Ray and Manny know that whoever they stole from is going to come after them. Manny suggests that they should give the money back, but Ray believes otherwise. Theresa needs about ten grand, which means Ray needs to keep the money. But more than that, he knows that returning the cash is not going to smooth things over, but it’s only going to make it easier for the other guy to kill them. Instead, they decide to leave the city for a while. Ray sends Theresa to Atlantic City, while Manny decides to get his girlfriend out of the city.
Another question that they have to deal with is how they will be tracked. Ray believes that Rick was too dumb to have found a location like that to rob, which means that someone else put him up to this, which means that the details of their operation are out in the open. The first suspect in ratting them out turns out to be Ray’s father. When he confronts the old man in prison, he accepts that he may have talked to a guy while discussing some stuff in a group. Ray and Manny track down the guy, only to discover that he and part of his group have already been murdered. They are attacked by two men, but after a lot of back and forth, they manage to make it out alive.
This confirms for them that the drug dealer they stole from is already on their tails. To clear any doubts about this, they receive a call on one of the dead men’s phones, where the voice on the other end orders to go to Ray’s house and kill him. A scared Ray immediately heads to his house, only to discover that it has been ransacked by his dog, Shermie. He quickly collects his stuff, including the dog, and drives away. Later, he gets another call in which the speaker identifies him as Ray and threatens to kill Bart and Manny. When Ray offers to give the money back, the voice reveals that he will be visiting Manny. Scared for his friend’s life, Ray tries to call and warn Manny, but the latter does not pick up.
Manny is not at home, and there is no dead body, which comes as a relief to Ray, but before he can take a break, he notices two men watching the house. As soon as Ray gets out of the house, they come after him. One of them almost gets him, but a truck’s sudden arrival in a narrow alley leads the guy to die, and Ray escapes. As he continues to call Manny, he receives no answer, which worries him about his friend’s fate. He wonders whether Manny really is dead, but because we don’t see anybody, there is a good chance that he escaped in time. Or, there is a bigger chance that he was found and is being held captive. The phone call that Ray gets at the end suggests that the other guy will try to use Manny to lure Ray out with the money and the drugs (which he handed over to Son) and then kill both of them. Or better yet, it could be Manny finally calling him to let him know that he is safe and sound.
Read More: Where is Dope Thief Filmed?
