'The Instigators': Matt Damon, Casey Affleck lead muted comedy where Boston criminals want to flee to Montreal
A divorced dad and an ex-con are involved in a heist gone wrong in the new Apple TV+ movie
Boston boys band together for the movie The Instigators, starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, with Ben Affleck among the producers. Now streaming on Apple TV+, the heist film pairs an ex-con and a father desperate for cash in an action comedy set around a robbery gone wrong.
While the movie also features notable actors like Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Paul Walter Hauser, Ron Perlman and Jack Harlow, the core of the story is really this buddy bromance between Damon and Casey Affleck's characters. With a little wink to Montreal for the Canadian audience.
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What is 'The Instigators' about?
Rory (Damon) is an ex-marine and father who's in need of some cash after his divorce, $32,480 specifically. In addition to the financial struggles, he's also working through personal challenges with his therapist Dr. Donna Rivera (Chau).
Cobby (Casey Affleck) is an ex-con and an alcoholic who could use some extra funds. We first meet Cobby as he's trying to get a kid to help him fake a breathalyzer test.
Rory and Cobby both link up with a local mob boss Mr. Besegai (Stuhlbarg), along with Richie Dechico (Molina), who enlist the pair, along with Scalvo (Harlow), to rob the crooked mayor of Boston, played by Perlman, on his election night.
But when things don't go as planned, Rory and Cobby end up being pursued by police, city officials, and Mr. Besegai and his goons.
Everyone's plan when things don't work out in Besegai's scheme is to escape to Canada, Montreal specifically, to avoid the cops.
Is 'The Instigators' worth watching?
The Instigators does what it has to do, and nothing more.
It checks the buddy comedy box, and gives you the Boston accent and the Dunkin' cups, but it never really tries to up the stakes. We're all just there for laughs, executed in the simplest ways possible.
Damon and Affleck are fine leads, the issue is that the film really lacks vibrancy and excitement to get particularly enthused about the relationship between their characters. But the pair clearly know how to work together and that's what keeps the core storyline from falling apart.
Chau's character feels particularly under-serviced in the story. Even though the film is centred around a budding bromance, she was present in a way that didn't add value to the story. We could have watched Stuhlbarg as a crime boss who wears a fur coat and pinky ring all day, but we didn't get enough time with him in this movie, even though Stuhlbarg and Molina were really the highlights of the film. Hauser is another actor who got far too little screen time after a short and sweet performance.
Ultimately, plot points and characters keep weaving in and out of the story at a rate that's more distracting than useful, and you're left missing a lot of these characters.
That being said, there's certainly room in this world for movies made for the moments when we want something that's easy to watching, almost mindless, as a form a relaxation. We all do it and The Instigators will certainly fill that need for a lot of people.
