The Instigators

4 outta 5

The Instigators is a fun flick about low rent crooks getting up to hijinks and setbacks trying to get one big score. Also, there is a psychotherapy angle as the crooks get caught up with a therapist amidst a series of unfortunate heist bungles. There is a pretty stacked cast that is kind of overlooked in a few moments, but they get in some neat bits. The two leads are amusing as they banter back and forth as the film remains consistently zippy and engaging.

Rory (Matt Damon) is a former soldier undergoing psychological counselling with Donna (Hong Chau). He is despondent as he doesn’t have enough money to see his son, so he takes on a heist job from the criminal Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Richie (Alfred Molina). Him, Cobby (Casey Affleck) and Scalvo (Jack Harlow) go to a shindig for corrupt Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) to take off with copious amounts of bribe money. But when they arrive, they see that the money is gone and then the hotheaded Scalvo shoots a cop, gets killed, and now Rory and Cobby are on the run. With the intense officer Toomey (Ving Rhames) on their tail, and Cobby shot and needing assistance, Rory finds his therapist to assist in patching Cobby up. Also to try not to get captured by every cop in the city.

Affleck and Damon are the main guys and most of it consists of Affleck’s character Cobby cracking wise about how Damon’s character of Rory is too old. There are a standard comedic pairing of the motormouthed guy and the quiet one, but it works really well. Damon starts off the film incredibly mopey, saying some dark things about what he might do to himself if he can’t see his son. His therapist takes notice and when he comes to her for help to treat Cobby’s bullet wound, she makes him promise that he would not harm himself. There is darkly funny stuff here, as Damon’s Rory awkwardly threatens people. Another funny scene is where the two squabble if an armed guard is hiding in a truck they stole, and the result is pretty great. Affleck’s Cobby has some fun sardonic reactions to everything going on. Even when he is shot, he has some good quips about his fate. He needs sober people to start his breathalyzer locked motorcycle, so he is grabbing local kids to start it. Chau as the psychiatrist keeps a level head when talking to Rory, as she is concerned about his safety. As she isn’t taking care of Cobby, she dismisses him easily which hurts his feelings.

The number of smaller roles in this film with some name actors is impressive, it is as if Damon and the Affleck brothers raided their rolodex and got several people to show up. Stuhlbarg as the angry, yelling criminal boss is impressive as he usually plays a lot of meek weenies but he’s constantly hollering here. It is neat to see him yelling at Richie played by Alfred Molina as Molina is usually the loudly angry one. They have big parts at the start, but after the caper goes sideways, both characters end up on the run, and the script basically forgets about them, ultimately using the two as a mid-credits stinger joke. It is weird to see rapper Jack Harlow as a hotheaded goon, but he works well as he snaps quickly. At one point when the two guys are on the run, they are chased by a goon named Booch (Paul Walter Hauser) and the goon makes like he is going to execute them. Cobby isn’t buying he’ll do it, so they start smack talking each other in the midst of a standoff, leading to a amusingly explosive resolution.

As Mayor Miccelli, Perlman plays a big, nasty heavy as he often does, and his Mayor is almost comically corrupt, wanting his bribes only in cash and bars of gold. When the sniper squad opens up on the two guys hiding in the Mayor’s office, locked in with his safe, he cheers on the cops to keep firing. When he is told that his lawyer, played by Tobey Jones, is in the room being fired upon he just waves it off. Jones as the lawyer gets to be a real turncoat, trying to give over evidence that the Mayor was accepting bribes so he can get away. By the end, the level of corruption across the entire political spectrum helps Cobby and Rory escape. The only officer who seems upstanding is Toomey played by Rhames. At first, he seems like a villain as he angrily smashes a donut shop for information, but he turns out to be the only honest cop by the end.

There is a decent series of things going wrong throughout The Instigators which makes it entertaining. The guys are constantly on the run from robbing the Mayor so they try to rob him again as nobody will see it coming. There are also some decent car chases as they end up with the entire police force on their tail, with Donna trying to council Rory in the middle of a high-speed pursuit. Overall, the banter of the leads combined with some decent cameos makes for a fun heist movie of frequently enjoyable screwups.