‘The Instigators’ Review

There is a formula these days for so many straight to streaming movies. Get A-List stars, fill in a Mad Libs script for a popular genre, and don’t spend too much time on plot, character, or style.

And the result is … fine. I didn’t have a bad time watching ‘The Instigators’, but I can’t say I’ll remember this movie a week from now.

Matt Damon plays Rory, a former Marine with suicidal thoughts, in need of a very specific amount of money. He joins up with Cobby (Casey Affleck) and Scalvo (Jack Harlow) to execute a heist as planned by Mr. Basegai (Michael Stuhlbarg). The target: the incumbent mayor’s post-election party. The initial heist goes poorly, and the movie becomes a buddy comedy with Rory and Cobby on the run from the local criminals and the police, trying to figure out how to get out of this mess clean. But mostly, things just kind of happen.

The entire film plays like a heist comedy by numbers. There is the local criminal element, the corrupt mayor’s office, and a menacing police officer played by Ving Rhames, but the film doesn’t spend the time or effort trying to make these elements memorable or coherent. Characters come and go, with wildly inconsistent Boston accents, almost as if they’re forgotten. The main antagonist is kind of a moving target, so that when the film ends, I wasn’t so much satisfied as I was resigned. Sure, that’s that.

For a movie with so many big name actors, Casey Affleck pops the most. His character plays like an extension of his Saturday Night Live Dunkin Donuts skit: a motormouth, vulgar, drunk Bostonian who commits crimes because what else is there to do. Damon is fine, but his performance and his character’s dramatic subplots don’t mesh as well with the lighthearted tone of the rest of the movie.

As Boston movies go, this checks a lot of boxes: inconsistent accents, a plot centered on crime, lots of drinking and an inability to express feelings. For somebody in the Boston area, there’s a baseline entertainment in recognizing so many Boston landmarks: Bova’s Bakery, Post Office Square, a car chase that goes from the esplanade through 93 North.

This movie is nothing if not competent. These are professional actors, a professional director, making a professional movie. There are brief moments that go beyond the boilerplate heist script, such as a running joke around different police departments challenging each others’ jurisdiction. But mostly, this is a movie aiming for light fun, that seems satisfied as a background entertainment. If that’s what you’re looking for, you can do a lot worse than ‘The Instigators’.

The Instigators
Rated R for pervasive language and some violence.
Running Time: 1 hour and 41 minutes

Director Doug Liman
Writers Chuck Maclean, Casey Affleck
Stars Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman
Rating R
Running Time 101 Minutes
Genres Action, Comedy, Crime