Doug Liman directs; Matt Damon and Casey Affleck star in a thoroughly entertaining buddy comedy caper. Our review of The Instigators:
At its core, The Instigators is about two complete idiots. Fortunately, the filmmakers that dreamed them up are much smarter, as proven by two introductory scenes that are as precisely engineered as a Swiss watch.
In the first, we meet Matt Damon’s Rory, a tired, worn-down military veteran who misses his son and, in his own mumbling way, admits the depths of his depression to his shrink Dr Rivera, played with clear-eyed intelligence by Hong Chau. Cut to Casey Affleck’s Cobby, an alcoholic ex-con who’s so morally bankrupt that he uses his own young son to perform his breathalyser tests for him.
One scene after that, and we’re introduced to the grand scheme that will shape the rest of the movie: local hoodlum and deli owner Mr Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) wants to rob a corrupt Boston Mayor on the eve of his seemingly inevitable re-election. Known for taking cash bribes and kickbacks from the city’s most powerful, Mayor Miccelli (a glowering Ron Perlman) is sure to have a safe full of cash by the time Cobby and Rory break in.
To the shock of everyone involved (but not the audience), the heist doesn’t exactly go as planned, and from this point on, The Instigators tears irresistibly from one antic scenario to the next, with the two leads pursued by both the police – as represented by Ving Rhames’ Special Operations Unit officer, Frank Toomey, who drives around in what looks like a tank – and assorted hoodlums, including Paul Walter Hauser’s slow-witted Booch.
The script, co-written by Affleck and Chuck Maclean, has a likeably bickering quality that recalls Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and in particular The Nice Guys. Like Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in the latter, Damon and Affleck make for a great comic pairing, with the pair gamely exchanging barbs (“Bit late for a career change, isn’t it? What are you, 60?”) as the plot gradually picks out more character details.
Cobby’s an alcoholic loser, sure, but he’s observant, has a sarcastic wit and a worrying penchant for starting fires. Rory’s no hero – he’s the polar opposite of Damon’s unflappable Jason Bourne – but he’s revealed to be essentially decent and occasionally more shrewd than other characters give him credit for.
Doug Liman, who last directed Damon in The Bourne Identity, evidently relishes the chance to run around real Boston locations with handheld cameras. The Instigators is directed with a rough edge that contrasts refreshingly with the screwball script; the corrupt mayor and the safe stuffed with cash are the stuff of pulp thrillers, but Liman keeps it all grounded in what feels real in the moment. All of which builds to two car chase set-pieces that, although they don’t top those seen in The Bourne Identity, have a sense of weight and impact to them.
The Instigators comes just a few months after Liman’s Road House remake, which was a fun throwback to 1980s action flicks. Itself recalling a bygone era of buddy comedies, The Instigators is arguably the best of these two films. Its setups and payoffs feel tighter, the quality of its acting more even, its cast of characters more uniformly well drawn.
Even smaller roles are populated by great character actors; for a while, it’s a wonder why Toby Jones is here as a weasley lawyer; then Liman comes up with a superb shot involving a couch and his character gloomily pouring himself a scotch, and it suddenly makes sense.
Like the Coen brothers’ thrillers, there are no criminal masterminds here: Perlman’s Mayor Miccelli is a Trumpian crook out solely for himself. Stuhlbag’s Mr Besegai and his partner Richie (Alfred Molina) can barely keep their own underlings under control, and we suspect they’re probably not great at business either – just look at the massive stack of unsold Nintendo 64s piled up in his hideaway.
With the exception of Chau’s coolly astute Dr Rivera, who keeps popping up to take command in assorted tense situations, they’re all just a bunch of idiots. But what watchable idiots they are.
The Instigators premieres on Apple TV+ on the 9th August.
