Despite often featuring A-list talent both in front of and behind the camera, a surprising number of streaming movies look, sound, and feel second-rate—a group that now includes The Instigators.
Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow, the recent Road House remake), and starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck alongside a who’s-who of illustrious supporting players, this Apple TV+ film—which will receive a one-week theatrical release on August 2 before debuting on the online platform on August 9—is a wan approximation of The Friends of Eddie Coyle by way of Out of Sight, devoid of the very comedic energy it covets and, it turns out, desperately requires. The sole thing it instigates is frustration over its lethargic unoriginality.
The Instigators is generic in just about every respect, from its title (which is unrelated to its plot), to its criminal shenanigans, to the green “33” jersey (minus the name “Bird”) hanging in a downtown Boston office.
Written by Affleck and Chuck Maclean, the film at least wastes no time with laborious set-up. Crime boss Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) is ready to execute a “once in a lifetime” score but has no one to pull it off. The best he can do is compel incompetent reprobate Scalvo (Jack Harlow) to find some hoods to carry out his heist.
The guys he procures are far from expert crooks. Cobby (Affleck) is an ex-con who went to prison after taking the fall for a job gone wrong, and now spends his days finding anyone—including children—to blow into the breathalyzer device that allows him to drive his motorcycle to his favorite watering hole. Rory (Damon), on the other hand, is an ex-Marine who tells his VA hospital therapist Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau) that he’s on the precipice of killing himself, and who signs up for this gig because he needs precisely $32,480.
Rory and Cobby don’t know each other and don’t get along, what with the former a reserved, serious, and awkward first-timer and the latter a loudmouthed, irresponsible repeat offender. This dynamic should beget amusingly abrasive banter, but The Instigators fails to even gently tickle the funny bone. There’s nothing witty about Cobby’s stream of nonsense or Rory’s attempts to act tough and ruthless during their daring operation, largely because neither character has been boldly defined; instead, they feel like faint photocopies of archetypes, drained of any vibrant color.
While some of this is due to Damon and Affleck’s lackadaisical performances, it’s primarily the fault of a screenplay that repeatedly strains for Midnight Run-esque buddy-comedy hostility and only comes up with lukewarm sarcasm and feeble antagonism.
Besegai hires Rory and Cobby (partnered with Scalvo) to rob Boston’s incumbent Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) on the night the politician is supposed to win re-election, the thinking being that Miccelli is so insanely corrupt that his safe will be overflowing with cash bribes. Theoretically, this is a solid plan, but from the moment Rory and Cobby arrive at the shindig, things go sideways, culminating in a shooting that leaves Scalvo dead and Rory and Cobby on the run.
With no loot, they’re hunted by everyone involved in The Instigators, from Mayor Miccelli—who has badass detective Frank Toomey (Ving Rhames) track down a coveted gold bracelet that the duo pilfered from him—to Besegai, who orders his right-hand man Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina) to employ killer Booch (Paul Walter Hauser) to retrieve the bounty and kill the bumbling pair.
These impressive components, alas, amount to simply dreary clownishness, with Liman’s flat direction sabotaging even the rare moments that have mirthful potential. Liman and cinematographer Henry Braham shoot everything with a straightforward banality that goes hand-in-hand with Affleck and Damon’s repartee, and the action isn’t enlivened by the occasional cutesy needle drop.
Worse, though, is that so many actors are squandered in bland, empty parts. Perlman bellows as the unethical mayor, Toby Jones flutters about as his assistant, Rhames acts tough as the for-hire cop, and Stuhlbarg rants and raves (and wears a big fur coat) as the underworld boss who’s screwed over by his employees. Molina, meanwhile, is somehow given less to do as Richie, a character who’s so inconsequential (he’s a baker who works for Besegai, and, um, that’s it) that it seems like his role was drastically cut in post-production—a fate that also apparently befell Hauser’s Booch, who similarly, swiftly vanishes from the proceedings.
The Instigators’ unimaginativeness is epitomized by an early scene in which Rory writes down Scalvo’s instructions, prompting the hood to ask with exasperation, “Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?”—an incident that’s lifted almost wholesale from The Wire.
Eager to evade their homicidal pursuers, Rory and Cobby venture to the beach and, following a gunshot injury, to the office of Donna, whom they take hostage (with her permission) so she can medically treat the wound. Donna’s presence initiates lots of quasi-therapy talk between the trio, as well causes Cobby to swoon, although any romantic sparks are snuffed out by the material’s lifeless dialogue. So too is any coherent sense of these protagonists’ underlying issues and motivations, all of which come across as mere screenwriting devices.
Damon and Affleck boast authentic Boston accents, and The Instigators appears to have been shot on location in their hometown, yet unlike Ben Affleck did with The Town, Liman never captures the city’s unique character. On paper, his latest has all the elements necessary for a sharp, suspenseful lark, but it doesn’t piece them together in a manner that’s engaging, much less exciting.
Rory and Cobby embark on various pseudo-wacky courses of action, including having to re-rob the mayor in order to get Rory his money—which he wants for child support-related costs that are stymieing his relationship with his son—and to help the two clear their names. As with everything else in this leaden affair, what sounds crazy on paper winds up being pedestrian and enervating in execution, and results in another in what’s become an increasingly long line of halfhearted high-profile streaming movies.
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