Matt Damon and Casey Affleck deliver the goods in this silly, well-oiled Apple TV+ movie.
Akhil Arora, a Film Critics Guild member and a Rotten Tomatoes-certified TV critic, who has been reviewing movies and TV series since 2015. He has written for NDTV and SlashFilm.
More than midway through The Instigators—the Apple TV+ original movie with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in the lead—a black trashed-up BMW is chased through the streets of Boston by cop cars from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Inside the fugitive vehicle, as Petula Clark’s 1964 global hit “Downtown” blares off the speakers, a well-meaning psychiatrist attempts to counsel her dispirited patient while he’s actively evading the police. In the back, a super talkative sot is incessantly cracking jokes, providing unnecessary commentary or interrupting the doctor-patient exchange. But all the driver wants is for someone to change the song. It’s the funniest high-speed car chase I’ve seen in a film in years.
The Instigators doesn’t overstay its welcome
Thanks to the dynamic between its leads, the support work of a colourful extended cast, and the pacing maintained by directed by Doug Liman, The Instigators proves to be a very funny heist comedy. Nothing ever goes according to plan. The Apple movie—written by Chuck MacLean (City on a Hill) and Affleck—routinely takes the mickey by showing how underprepared everyone is. There is no engineered precision or clever improvisations here. That approach lends a freshness to a genre that too often relies on character quirks and smirky one-liners to power the humour.
In fact, The Instigators isn’t afraid of directly invoking movies that do just that. Die Hard is referenced multiple times, with the Apple film repeatedly wondering why everyone is so interested in being a hero. But there are also times when it’s not smart enough to recognize its zany moments. Scenes that ought to stress the comedy—in one instance, a doctor volunteers to be her patient’s hostage because that’s how invested she is in him—end up focusing on the more serious notes.
It also fails much of its supporting ensemble. The Instigators is unable to make sufficient room for what they bring to the table. The scenes they inhabit aren’t tonally suited to what they can deliver. Or it mashes them together in ways that take the edge off their interactions and characterisations.
Still, this 92-minute heist comedy doesn’t overstay its welcome and has the ingredients to be heartfelt, sincere, and funny—sometimes all at once. The Instigators is a lot of fun.
In The Instigators, a former Marine and a motormouth drunk
It’s the dead of winter in Boston with a mayoral runoff election due in a week. Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) thinks it’s a foregone conclusion that the incumbent Joseph Miccelli (Ron Perlman) will be re-elected. And on the night of his win, he’ll receive a lot of cash from those trying to curry favour. Besegai tasks Scalvo (Jack Harlow) to assemble and lead a crew to steal that money. The Instigators brings in former Marine mechanic and suicidal floor sander Rory (Damon) who’s in therapy and has family problems and motormouth Cobby Murphy (Affleck) who is addicted to alcohol and has a history with the crew. They are both offered 10 per cent of the take but Rory won’t settle for a penny less or more than $32,480. He’s a man with a particular need.
The Instigators is not interested in hanging about. It sets up its principal characters within 10 minutes and throws us into the heist within the first 15. Doug Liman knows how to handle this genre—he made the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-led Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt-led Edge of Tomorrow, and the Damon-led The Bourne Identity. This Apple movie is a lot sillier, though. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Rory, Cobby and Scalvo run into a lot more kitchen staff than expected. The money is a lot less than imagined. And the building schematics, taken off a real estate marketplace, are all wrong. The heist is a hot mess. It’s amazing how ill-thought the whole operation is.
The Instigators ultimately hangs on Damon–Affleck
Following a major blunder, the entire Boston police force begins hunting for Rory and Cobby. That also pulls in a menacing Frank Toomey (Ving Rhames)—a special operations unit agent who rolls around Boston with his own mini-tank—as Mayor Miccelli tasks him with a personal errand of sorts. Meanwhile, Besegai tells his right-hand guy Richie DeChico (Alfred Molina) to clean up the mess they’ve made.
Though The Instigators throws a bunch of stellar character actors into the picture, it is ultimately the Rory and Cobby dynamic that powers the film. While Rory is a newbie, Cobby has executed jobs for Scalvo before. There’s also a big age gap between them. Neither Rory nor Cobby gets along with Scalvo—one keeps taking notes (“You do realise this is a criminal conspiracy?”) and the other has a bone to pick with Scalvo.
It helps that Damon and Affleck know exactly what to do. The two leads deliver on their respective roles as a gruff mild-mannered middle-aged fellow who won’t hurt a soul and a jaded cavalier man who’s trying to run away from his own problems.
The Instigators borders on a farce
The one supporting character who is well utilised is Rory’s therapist, Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau). Rory has screwed things up with his ex-wife and their son and he isn’t willing to talk openly about everything. But no matter how he feels or how much he refuses to communicate, Rivera won’t give up on her patient until she’s truly helped him. She’s the world’s best—and thereby a massively underpaid—psychiatrist. The Instigators isn’t a heist or a comedy at its core. It’s a therapy movie. The heart of the film is Rory trying to heal from his trauma and the underlying mental health problems he has.
But it’s not burdened by the weight of it. Overall, in fact, The Instigators borders on a farce. The Apple film derives a lot of joy from telling us what to expect before throwing its characters into a situation that has massively ballooned out of their control. Twenty-two years from making an era-redefining The Bourne Identity—the franchise changed the Bond films and the genre to an extent—Damon and Liman have reunited on a very different movie tonally. I’m not saying The Instigators is going to do the same thing for heist comedies. But I do appreciate a movie that quickly gets into the thick of it, hits its beats with minimum fuss and makes a fast getaway. Unlike Rory and Cobby.
The Instigators released on Friday, August 9 on Apple TV+ worldwide.
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