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Matt Damon and Casey Affleck reunite for a delightful Boston comedy heist that forces you to root for the underdog. Co-written by Casey Affleck along with Chuck Maclean and directed by Doug Liman, The Instigators sees Affleck’s ex-con and Damon’s ex-marine pair up to rob the mayor’s office.
Damon plays Rory, a broke ex-marine whose US Army therapist, Dr Rivera (Hong Chau), is concerned about his suicidal ideation. Affleck stars as Cobby, an ex-con and current bar manager who is introduced using a neighborhood kid to help him pass his alcohol test.
The two are down on their luck, with Rory so behind on his alimony that he has been blocked from seeing his kid. The pair are hired by local businessmen (Michael Stuhlbarg and Alfred Molina) who rob the mayor’s re-election party of his dodgy cash donations. The job unravels when their team captain, the sociopathic Scalvo (rapper Jack Harlow), decides to get trigger-happy and hold Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) at gunpoint.
A small problem during the robbery snowballs into a thrilling 90 minutes of car crashes, hostages, explosions, and shootouts. When the re-election party doesn’t go to plan, Rory and Cobby flee the scene and become a major target for the authorities and the criminal underworld.
The Instigators Review on Apple TV+
Half of Boston’s underworld is sent on the mission to find Rory and Cobby and collect the MacGuffin the Mayor needs to return to him. Some of today’s best character actors, including Ving Rhames, Toby Jones, and Paul Walter Hauser, are tasked with this job, often with scenery-chewing results. The hunt for the stolen object isn’t doing anything new with the genre but it does make the road to the reveal fin.
As it happens, neither Cobby nor Rory are natural criminals. Both muddle their way through incidents, making it almost impossible for audiences not to root for them. Despite their pasts, both are good people with good reasons for their actions. Rory has the brains but not the street smarts, Cobby has the criminal knowledge but doesn’t stop to think about the outcome of his actions.
The Instigators is refreshingly funny, the laughs placed in between the action with an effortless light hand. Some modern blockbusters struggle to balance the humor and the set pieces, but thanks to the chemistry between Damon and Affleck, it’s a joy. The reluctant pairing between methodical Rory and the haywire Cobby, who, despite their differences, are both working-class Boston boys, is a delight to watch. The writing milks their dissimilarities, but the performances sell the laughs.
The duo is joined by Rory’s VA psychiatrist, Rivera, who volunteers as a hostage in the promise that Rory will turn themselves in. Despite being a poorly written one-dimensional woman, Chau clearly has fun with the role. She more than keeps up with Affleck and Damon as they squabble during a thrilling multi-car chase.
The supporting cast is less effective, wasting talent on pointless minor roles. Alfred Molina’s criminal, Ving Rhames’s ex-cop, Paul Walter Hauser’s hitman, and Toby Jones as a city hall lawyer all deserve better than thankless roles as thinly characterized heist movie stereotypes. Michael Stuhlbarg better understands the assignment and chews up every scene that he is in, playing against the type of hardened criminal.
The set pieces are genuinely thrilling for those who want a good action movie. The opening heist perfectly balances the comedy and the violence. The mid-movie car chase as ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark plays in the background rivals the thrills of any serious crime movie.
The Trumpian politics of Perlman’s crooked mayor who refuses to concede is touched upon but mostly ignored. The political leanings of the movie are hinted at, but despite playing a huge role in the third act, they are mostly ignored. Toby Jones’ flustered lawyer has the potential to add an extra layer to proceedings but instead feels like a leftover from a plot that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Director Doug Liman (whose credits include The Bourne Identity, Edge Of Tomorrow, and, recently the disappointing Jake Gyllenhaal Road House remake) doesn’t wait on ceremony. Within the first 20 minutes, the characters are all introduced, the villains identified, and the heist set up and failed. The brisk pacing works as we follow the blue-collar men as their day goes from bad to worse. It is almost a rarity for a modern Hollywood director to understand how to create a snappy yet coherent narrative.
Despite The Instigators sharing a cast with Ocean’s Eleven, it shares more DNA with Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky. Both feature unlikely heroes with no particular skills or smarts somehow involved in a heist. Eliminating the smugness of skilled criminals makes it easy for audiences to root for the hero.
The Instigators is not doing anything new with the genre but it understands the well-worn tropes enough to laugh at them. Thanks to the chemistry between the leading actors, the bickering between the two main characters never quite gets boring.
The Instigators opens for a limited theatrical release on Friday, August 2, before it starts streaming on Apple TV+.
Grade: B-
The Instigators
Rory and Cobby are unlikely partners thrown together for a heist. But when it goes awry, they team up to outrun police, backward bureaucrats, and a vengeful crime boss.
