Matt Damon does a heist in director Doug Liman’s latest thriller, The Instigators, which also co-stars Casey Affleck. Here’s the trailer:
The dust has begun to settle on director Doug Liman’s public altercation with Amazon MGM over the straight-to-streaming release of Road House. Months later, Liman has another thriller heading to a streaming service: this time it’s The Instigators, due on Apple TV+ soon.
This one’s co-written by Casey Affleck, who also stars alongside Matt Damon as a pair of criminals whose attempted heist goes horribly wrong. In the aftermath, a therapist (Hong Chau) gets swept up in their frantic escape from the cops. (The other screenwriter, in case you were wondering, is Chuck MacLean, who worked previously with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on a TV series called City On A Hill, about organised crime in Boston.)
The Instigators marks Damon’s reunion with Liman over two decades after they made the hit, franchise-starting thriller, The Bourne Identity. Their latest film together seems to have the same lightly comic touch as the recent Road House remake, which, a few caveats aside, we really rather enjoyed.
Read more: Road House review | Jake Gyllenhaal is the standout in a boisterous remake
Produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, among others, The Instigators also has a superb supporting cast, including Michael Stuhlbarg, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones and Ron Perlman. That’s quite a line-up.
Despite the assorted chaos over its release, Road House was ultimately a streaming success when it appeared on Prime Video this spring – so much so that there’s already a sequel planned. Given Liman’s ‘war with Amazon’, it seems unlikely he’ll be directing it, but this is Hollywood, so who knows.
The Instigators will get a brief release in US cinemas on the 2nd August before making its Apple TV+ debut on the 9th August.
Read more: Road House | “I’ve very publicly lost here,” says Doug Liman of his “war with Amazon”
