The Instigators stages a crime comedy as generic as its title

In the Boston-set crime comedy The Instigators, a couple of down-on-their-luck losers get themselves involved in a heist that goes predictably wrong. Cobby (Casey Affleck) is a sarcastic, smart-alecky ex-con. Rory (Matt Damon) is a depressed, divorced flooring installer who used to be in the Marines. The plan, organized by a local thief and backed by the continually flustered mid-level gangster Mr. B (Michael Stuhlbarg, cast against type as a guy with a neck tattoo), is to rob a big victory party on the night of the upcoming mayoral election: Get in easy, get out fast, make off with a few hundred thousand in cash bribes and tribute from the city’s political machine. 

As heist-movie conceits go, it’s not a bad one. Director Doug Liman (whose credits include The Bourne Identity, Edge Of Tomorrow, and, more recently and less promisingly, the Road House remake) moves quickly in setting up the plot and characters. By the 10-minute mark, we’re on to the planning; by minute 15, we’re on to the actual robbery. Things briskly go from bad to worse, and soon Rory and Cobby are on the run without the expected loot but in possession of a MacGuffin of some significance to the corrupt incumbent mayor (Ron Perlman). Eventually, they’re joined by Rory’s VA psychiatrist, Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), who volunteers to act as the duo’s hostage out of a sense of medical duty and on the promise that Rory will turn himself in. 

Much of the screenplay (by Affleck and City On A Hill creator Chuck MacLean) plays out as a series of long bicker sessions with therapy talk about abandonment and personal responsibility sprinkled in between. Just about everyone—the gangsters, the venal local politicos, the reluctant odd-couple accomplices—has had their schemes go awry, and they can’t stop busting each other’s balls in Beantown accents of varying accuracy and broadness. With so much conflict in the mix, it’s maybe inevitable that some problems of tone should arise: The Instigators can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a somewhat offbeat, convoluted crooks-on-the-run movie or an over-budgeted cookie-cutter action film. For every oddball idea or hangout scene the script tosses our way, there’s another competent-but-not-exciting car chase involving collisions and pile-ups of swerving stolen cars, cop cruisers, and emergency vehicles, or a huge, loud CGI-assisted explosion. 

Throughout, Liman errs on the side of broadness: This is the cinematic Baw-ston of dudes in hoodies, dim Irish bars, criminality, and unpaid child support, where House Of Pain’s “Jump Around” can blare over the soundtrack at a climactic moment as bills flutter through the air. The Instigators’ pleasures, perhaps unsurprisingly, are of the generic variety, and mostly come down to watching an endless parade of stalwart character actors do their thing: Alfred Molina as Mr. B’s lieutenant; Paul Walter Hauser as an ineffectual hitman; Toby Jones as a lackey-ish city hall lawyer; Ving Rhames as a feared, looming cop who acts as the mayor’s personal enforcer. 

Besides the cast, the best thing The Instigators has going for it is Liman’s pacing. Maybe in some earlier, irreversibly bygone era it would seem like less of a virtue, but there’s something to be said for a modern director who still has the skills necessary to move from one thing to another with a minimum of wasted time. But despite the script’s attempts at giving Rory and Cobby some kind of therapeutic arc (with Dr. Rivera as the not-exactly-unwilling mediator), none of it adds up to anything that isn’t predictable and two-dimensional—as anonymous as its nonsense title. For the most part, it just inspires unfavorable comparisons to better, quirkier, grubbier films.

Director: Doug Liman
Writer: Chuck MacLean, Casey Affleck
Starring: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman
Release Date: August 2, 2024 (theaters); August 9, 2024 (Apple TV+)