A crime thriller starring Matt Damon, reuniting him with his “The Bourne Identity” filmmaker Doug Liman, and de facto little brother Casey Affleck, should be a cause for celebration, or at least a team-up of much anticipation. But the bickering, buddy cop-dynamics of “The Instigators” is a non-starter from the jump, a painfully dire, tiresome, mismatched robbers comedy—the term used as lightly as possible— that cannot remotely be salvaged despite all the acting firepower within it.
Alongside Damon and Affleck, as if they weren’t enough, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow, and Ron Perlman make for a fairly star-studded effort. But “The Instigators” is agonizingly banal, broad, loud, unsubtle, and deeply predictable.
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Written by Chuck Maclean and Casey Affleck, “The Instigators” is unfortunately very rote and familiar. It is a Boston crime drama with two Boston yahoo chuckleheads (Damon and Affleck, elevated Southie accents, naturally) quarreling at its center.
The film starts with Rory (Matt Damon), a former marine, desperate father, and seeming full-time loser, discussing his meager life with his therapist, Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau). Rory seems depressed and checked out, and when asked if he is suicidal and a danger to himself, he answers, “Not today.” But the real rub of it is that he’s divorced, lost his kids, and feels hopeless. He made a decision that in a year’s time, if he still feels like garbage, he’ll “check out” and seemingly end his life. And well, his therapist finds out that it’s almost been a year to the day since he made this vow to himself.
“The Instigators” then fast-forwards to the crime of it all. Local Boston criminal Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg), has a little plot he believe he can profit from. The mayoral election is coming up, and corrupt politician Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) is expected to win. That means a goldmine of bribes and cash will hit his doorstep that night, and Besegai wants to profit from these ill-gained earnings. Through his doofus thug Scalvo (Jack Harlow), he hires two desperate losers to pull off the job, recruiting Rory and the mouthy ex-con Cobby (Casey Affleck), yet another underachiever with no prospects.
What they don’t know is that they’re just the stooges of this operation. Besegai and his crime partner, Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina), intend to dispose of these bungling patsies when the crime is done. Of course, since Scalvo is a nitwit and Rory and Cobby aren’t much more confident, it all goes awry. Worse, they get there too late, and most of the money has already been transported away.
It all goes sour, of course. Scalvo dies, Cobby gets shot, and he and Rory become a reluctant pair on the run. Meanwhile, the crime bosses are livid. They’re out of pocket and need their mess cleaned up pronto. So, they hire another dumb goon, Booch (Paul Walter Hauser), to take out Cobby and Rory and tie up loose ends.
But it gets even more needlessly complicated. In the original meager theft, the mayor’s golden bracelet was stolen by a greedy Scalvo. Containing some kind of sentimental value, he hires a feared dirty cop, Frank Toomey (Ving Rhames), to retrieve it, which also puts the disinclined pair in another set of crosshairs.
If it all sounds bland, familiar, and routine, lord, that’s because it totally is. 90% of “The Instigators” is bickering and yelling at everyone’s collective ineptitude, with the smart-alecky Affleck running his mouth and dropping some irreverent quips, none of which are funny. Damon plays it all quietly and straight next to Affleck’s ill-mannered goon, but he occasionally drops some po-faced jokes too, but again, none of them land. The entire affair is just an increasing pile of complications on top of complications with incompetence everywhere and ceaseless quarreling.
The dynamics of “The Instigators” get seemingly somewhat more interesting in the middle of the film when Damon’s Rory character has to seek help from his therapist to take a bullet out of Cobby. He has to “take her hostage” in big air quotes so she won’t be complicit in their crimes, and eventually, concerned about his well-being, she joins them in their desperate run from the law—an average everyday car being chased by a wall of police cars, but somehow miraculously escapes—but it just amounts to more squabbling and more of this stilted deadpan humor that doesn’t at all work.
Of course, it all devolves into the cliched predicament for Rory and Cobby: put aside their differences, learn to work together, or get caught by the police and spend a lifetime in jail. More hijinx and dilemmas ensue, and none of it is remotely compelling (and the last act gets too ridiculous to bear in its attempt to redeem the pair; oh, did we mention the needle drops are awful?)
Directed by Doug Liman, though honestly, I had to double-check given it was crafted with such dull anonymity; unlike the chaotic camera work of Liman’s last 2024 film, “Road House,” the crime drama is just flat and insipid, a few car chases that are reminiscent of ‘Bourne,’ but otherwise directed with journeyman-like inconspicuousness and nearly paint-by-numbers efficacy at best.
For all of the talent involved, and especially as a rare reunion on screen between Damon and Affleck, “The Instigators” is shockingly uninspired. It’s just a typical bungling pair that falls backward into a crime opportunity; the plan gets royally screwed, and they have to try and make the best of it. While vengeful crime bosses and bureaucrats are on their tale, the duo eventually get closer, learning more about their vulnerabilities along the way; it’s all shockingly dreadful. A project by Damon and Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity company, the goal of taking control of their own destinies and greenlighting their own projects instead of waiting around for Hollywood to do it, “The Instigators” is perhaps a prime example of why every vanity project script should stay locked in a drawer. This is a B-movie of the week at best, which should be starring also-ran actors looking for a paycheck, not some of Hollywood’s finest. Honestly, without Apple’s original films behind it, “The Instigators” would be a forgettable, straight-to-VOD offering. The sooner we all forget about this one, the better. [D]
“The Instigators” opens in limited theatrical release on August 2 and makes its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on August 9, 2024.