REVIEW: The Instigators [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 101 minutes
Release Date: August 2nd, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Apple Studios
Director(s): Doug Liman
Writer(s): Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck

I guess I’ll drink a case of warm beer and bleed out.

Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina) are pissed because their guy Scalvo (Jack Harlow) screwed up. What did he screw up? I honestly don’t know. It may have been explained, but it doesn’t matter either way since most of Doug Liman’s The Instigators, written by Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck, glosses over details to propel us to the next plot point. All we must know is that Scalvo needs to make things right. He needs to find two guys willing to help him finish what Besegai started—an apparently fifteen-minute behind-the-scenes robbery of the incumbent mayor’s (Ron Perlman) latest slush fund.

The guys he recruits? A suicidal ex-Marine (Matt Damon’s Rory) and a loquacious ex-con drunk (Affleck’s Cobby). Are they capable of doing the work? Sure. As long as they can ask a few questions first. Unfortunately, many of the questions they do ask (namely dealing with contingency plans) go unanswered. So, when their lack of preparation turns deadly (since nothing goes as planned), the only option Besegai and Mayor Miccelli have is pulling the ripcord. Suddenly Rory and Cobby are on the run being chased by the former’s hitman (Paul Walter Hauser’s Booch) and the Special Ops head in the latter’s pocket (Ving Rhames’ Frank Toomey).

Because The Instigators is a comedy, their solution isn’t to simply escape. Yes, their survival instincts eventually kick in, but the incestuous nature of Boston makes it so their biggest problems come in the form of morons or disinterested civil servants doing their jobs. It allows them to therefore take some detours, collect Rory’s psychiatrist (Hong Chau’s Dr. Donna Rivera), and blow-up a couple buildings in order to keep their heads on their shoulders. And when things start to really get crazy, a little luck puts them right where they need to be to stumble into a way out … if they don’t accidentally get themselves killed first.

The progression is less about twists and turns are more about convenient green lights ushering them into new scenarios ripe for Cobby’s inability to shut-up and Rory’s one-track mind to pay his debts and check out. Why do they stick together? Because the script demands they must. You could say it’s because they saved each other’s lives, but that too is a convenience. The only real answer I’d accept is that they are both good compassionate people who have always been known to put others before themselves. As Cobby laments throughout, “Why are there so many heroes in Boston?” Well, they fit that bill too.

We’re watching two “nice guys” hanging by the skin of their teeth while an entire city bares down. And we’re in their corner because Besegai and Miccelli are irredeemable villains who deserve comeuppance. The thing about the film, though, is that one doesn’t affect the other. Not intentionally. Rory and Cobby aren’t motivated to stop either man. They merely hope to remain free by the end. It’s the script that keeps them connected—if it also keeps them in our consciousness at all considering Hauser is forgotten after five minutes and both Stuhlbarg and Molina disappear for an entire hour before closure comes via a mid-credit scene.

This is the type of film that will have plenty of people saying “it’s horrible” and plenty saying it was “forgettable entertainment.” No one will be saying it’s good, but The Instigators is fun if you think what it delivers is fun. I do. Damon and Affleck have an infectious rapport (they always do). Chau is a great contrast for them and Rhames looks to add some stakes to an otherwise hollow thriller that shows us very early on that Rory and Cobby will remain intact for the climax. The pieces are better than the whole, but you could still do a lot worse. Would I watch it again? Probably not. But I don’t regret watching it the first time.