Matt Damon (left) and Casey Affleck take part in a robbery gone wrong in the film “The Instigators,” which will stream on Apple TV+ starting Friday, August 9.
AP
“The Instigators” – 3 stars
Although depression lurks on the fringes of “The Instigators,” Doug Liman’s gangster film is a relaxed, friendly return to South Boston for Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, who also co-wrote the screenplay.
In the film’s opening moments, Rory (Damon), a former Marine, tells his therapist Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau) that after a lifetime of mishaps and disappointments, he’s not so much desperate as he is simply ready to “cash in” his ticket. His line is telling for a film in which midlife disappointments and a shaky heist plan gone wrong collide in absurd ways.
In a last-ditch effort to raise $32,480 for his child support, Rory teams up with a criminal gang of outsiders to steal money on election night for the corrupt Boston mayor (Ron Perlman), who is running for re-election.
Hong Chau, who plays therapist Dr. Rivera, accompanies Casey Affleck and Matt Damon on their run from the law in “The Instigators.”
AP
Therapists have found their way into crime series like “The Sopranos,” but “The Instigators” (in theaters Thursday and Friday, Aug. 9, on Apple TV+) adds a new twist by bringing Dr. Rivera along for the ride. When Rory and Cobby (Affleck) go on the run, she volunteers to accompany them as a hostage.
But it takes a while for the buddy comedy to develop. First, The Instigators features many of today’s finest character actors — including Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames, Toby Jones and Paul Walter Hauser — all of whom raise the bar in this rudderless but winningly shaggy action comedy.
Liman, the director of “Go,” “The Bourne Identity” and the recent “Road House,” has always had a knack for revealing ensembles and making the most of his stars’ charisma. “The Instigators” may be a modern streaming film, but it’s a decidedly old-fashioned rogue flick, full of local flavor and peopled with faces you’re happy to see. It’s a product of Damon and Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity, which produced the film from a screenplay by Casey Affleck and “City on the Hill” creator Chuck MacLean.
For them, the working-class Boston neighborhood in “The Instigators” is about as cozy as a seat in the bleachers at Fenway Park. “The Instigators” doesn’t live up to other films set in Beantown (Damon and Affleck, “Good Will Hunting,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town”), and some of its Dunkin’ Donuts-esque slapstick is at least remotely stale. You could call it a homecoming, but it’s more like they never left.
So, yes, they’re in their element here, but that’s especially true for Affleck, the main reason to watch The Instigators. His Cobby is a drunk and convict who joins the robbery for lack of other options. It’s an ill-advised plan by two petty criminals (Stuhlbarg, Molina), one of whom runs a bakery as a front. They send a trigger-happy petty criminal (Jack Harlow) to lead the mission, which is a debacle from the start. Nothing goes right, not even the expected election result, and out of the melee Cobby and Rory find themselves with a special police investigator (Rhames) relentlessly pursuing them.
On the run, their double act – Damon’s serious, deadpan expression, Affleck’s cheeky frivolity – works pretty well, even if the script could be a bit funnier. Affleck makes up for it with his melancholy blabbermouth act, which comes into its own when Chau, the talented co-star from “The Whale” and “Showing Up,” is persuaded to help them escape. Although Liman knows how to mix action and comedy better than anyone else, “The Instigators” is always better when things are less busy.
• • •
“The Instigators,” an Apple release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language throughout and some violence. Running time: 101 minutes. In Finnish with English subtitles.
