Susan Granger’s review of “The Instigators” (Apple TV+)
To plug their new heist movie – “The Instigators” – Matt Damon and Casey Affleck made a You Tube video pretending to rob a Dunkin Donuts; settling for a Boston Kreme and strawberry-frosted pastry, it’s almost as lame as the film.
Friends since their Cambridge, Massachusetts, childhood, Damon and Affleck (younger brother of Ben – with whom Damon wrote “Good Will Hunting”) went back to their native Boston to film this wannabe action-comedy caper.
Desperate Rory (Damon) is a divorced, debt-ridden ex-Marine who’s so depressed because he can’t come up with the $32,480 he owes in legal fees and child support for his teenage son that his VA psychiatrist, Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau), fears he might be a suicide risk.
To get that money, Rory partners with Cobby (Affleck), a wisecracking, alcoholic ex-con – also from blue-collar Quincy – in a crackpot plan to rob corrupt Beantown Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) on election night.
Apparently Miccelli stores his usual 11th-hour cash bribes in a huge office safe which is emptied regularly, so the holdup ought to go like clockwork. But – right from the getgo – they screw up. Meaning: not only are the police after them but also the Mayor’s Special Opps enforcer (Ving Rhames).
Problem is: precise Rory and impulsive Cobby are inept idiots. Riffing on “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” they bicker, fumble and bumble – yet nothing about them is even remotely endearing.
Eager to get the script he co-wrote with Chuck MacLean onto the screen, Casey Affleck gave it to Damon’s wife Luciana who obviously liked it. So Damon signed on, along with director Doug Limon (“The Bourne Identity,” “Edge of Tomorrow”) who intercuts dreary male-bonding/ buddy banter with far too many generic VFX car chases, involving an appalling amount of wreckage.
Deprived of substantive characterizations, stalwart supporting actors Alfred Molina, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow and Andre De Shields drift in and quickly disappear.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Instigators” is a flawed, unfocused, feeble 4 – streaming on Apple TV+… don’t waste your time.
