Here is my summary for The instigatorsApple TV+’s chaotic straight-to-streamer, starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck: After botching an election-night robbery, two dim-witted but affable Boston brothers (and one of their shrinks) evade the police while arguing like they’re in couples therapy. It’s a heist movie set on a shrink’s couch. It’s a parody of a heist movie set in Boston. It’s an action comedy that wants to be a blockbuster that parodies heist movies.
Whatever the goal of this film, it’s shaky, and the rivets fall off in an attempt to hold it all together.
Without being one of the positive adjectives (“genre-bending”) that are sometimes applied to films that have no real Hollywood precursor, The instigators is hard to categorize. It’s not quite trash or art or “so bad it’s good.” It has the appearance of a high-concept studio film, but it’s not quite that. What it is is a formulaic buddy action comedy designed for streaming (a path that 2021’s Red warning), but it is not a blockbuster. Red notices 37% on Rotten Tomatoes belied its commercial success as the most streamed movie (in hours) in Netflix history. This is, in my opinion, what Apple expects from The instigators: critically panned “content” (41% on Rotten Tomatoes so far) with populist blockbuster appeal and memes it doesn’t have – nobody tweets about this movie. It’s not weird enough; it is not Deep water.
There are moments when it feels as if it wanted to be a blockbuster, such as an absurd chase through downtown Boston, briefly accompanied by Petula Clark’s “Downtown.” But the film’s visual effects are too “made for TV,” especially the explosions, and the cinematography does not focus on Boston like Michael Bay’s Ambulance (2022) is about driving in Los Angeles. It could have been New York, were it not for the kitschy accents that remind you of the work of the actors in Hunting for good will.
Speaking of which, the Affleck-Damon exchange, the film’s comic engine, works for the most part, but it bears discussion. What you think of the dialogue between Rory (Damon) and Cobby (Affleck) will be the deciding factor in whether you can enjoy this film. Rory is a divorced father (and unemployed Marine) who needs exactly $32,480 to see his son. He’s in therapy because he’s suicidal. Rory is repressed and doesn’t seem comfortable in his life as a criminal. Affleck’s Cobby is the opposite: a talkative career criminal and pyromaniac who may (or may not) suffer from “disinhibited adult social attachment disorder.” Cobby spends most of the film trying to make Rory laugh. He never succeeds. (That’s the only spoiler in this review.) It’s the story of an unlikely pair.
I don’t mind the unnecessary cliches in the film, but the blasé digital cinematography and unimaginative marketing made me turn the film off and instead watch some of the classic heist comedies, such as Quick changewhich made you feel the claustrophobia of New York, Amos and Andrew (1993), whose unforgettable poster shows Nicolas Cage handcuffed to Samuel L. Jackson, Blue Stripe (1999), one of the funniest heist movies of all time, and Reindeer Games (2000), a Christmas heist film starring Charlize Theron and one of the producers of The instigatorsBen Affleck. That’s the problem with The instigators: It is simply not anything enough to keep you hooked. It is certainly not good, but also not bad enough to become a kitschy cult classic like Reindeer games. It’s just another movie you can stream.
Damon and Casey Affleck co-wrote the screenplay with Chuck Maclean of City on a hillKevin Bacon’s gritty Showtime series that recreates ’90s Beantown – its architecture, its smart-ass attitude and its sound. In terms of box office, Damon and Casey Affleck are still bona fide movie stars (especially Damon). And the supporting cast is a testament to Apple’s deep pockets, which lured Oscar nominee Hong Chau, who plays Damon’s psychiatrist, Michael Stuhlbarg (the wacky crime boss), Paul Walter Hauser (the cartoonish henchman), Ving Rhames (the mayor’s enforcer who drives a tank), Alfred Molina (the crime boss’s bakery owner), Toby Jones as a devious lawyer, Jack Harlow as one of the robbers and Ron Perlman as Boston’s corrupt surrogate for Donald Trump. The talented cast is led by director Doug Liman, unfairly known for his recent Rest house Remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a traumatized UFC fighter that I enjoyed for the same reasons I enjoy professional wrestling.
I like Liman. He has made some of my favorite films, including Swingers (1996) and Go (1999), films that shaped my generation. These films had replay value. We rented them again and again. The appeal of The instigatorsis, by contrast, fleeting and cheap – something to pass the last remnants of the summer doldrums. It’s a movie you can watch on your iPhone without losing anything, almost like something you rented in the ’90s and left in the box.
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Art Tavana is an award-winning journalist and author of Goodbye, Guns N’ Roses and former columnist at LA Weekly And playboy.
