Movie Reviews

‘The Instigators’ review: Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s newest isn’t your typical Boston movie. That’s a good thing.

Matt Damon and Casey Affleck's "The Instigators" is a satisfying action comedy that features all of the crime and none of the drama of fellow Boston movies like "The Departed."

By Kevin Slane

August 2, 2024

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“The Instigators,” the newest film from Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, is not your average Boston crime movie.

The Doug Liman-directed effort owes more of a debt to action comedies like “Midnight Run” than crime dramas like “The Departed.” Instead of watching Damon carefully infiltrate the Boston police over the course of decades, we see him take notes as he participates in planning for his first crime. Instead of bawling our eyes out watching Affleck bring bottomless pathos to a movie like “Manchester by the Sea,” we can watch him use a small child to bypass the breathalyzer on his motorcycle. In short, it’s a whole lot of harmless fun.

Filmed and set in Boston, “The Instigators” stars Damon as Rory, a depressed ex-Marine who is at the end of his rope. Estranged from his wife and too ashamed to face his son without the tens of thousands he owes in child support, Rory openly talks of ending it all to his VA therapist (Hong Chau, “The Whale”) unless he can come up with the $32,480 he needs. 

In desperation, the previously straight-laced Rory teams up with a bumbling small-time criminal Scalvo (rapper Jack Harlow) and recently released ex-con Cobby (Affleck) for a robbery masterminded by the enigmatic Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg).

The heist is distinctly Boston in nature: After finalizing plans in the bowels of Fenway Park, the trio head to a fancy restaurant near the Harbor, where the city’s exceedingly corrupt mayor (Ron Perlman) is holding a black-tie fundraiser on the eve of a hotly contested election, and the all-cash, untraceable donations are ripe for the taking.

Despite Damon’s top billing, “The Instigators” is Affleck’s movie from start to finish. Ben’s younger brother has shown an aptitude for playing the bickering sibling, whether begging for his double burger from Ben Affleck in “Good Will Hunting” or winding up Scott Caan in “Ocean’s 11.” But he’s never been front and center in a comedic role before, and he acquits himself admirably.

Playing a slightly savvier version of his “real” Dunkin’ Donuts customer from “Saturday Night Live” over the course of a full-length film might sound like a recipe for disaster, but nearly all of Cobby’s sarcastic rejoinders get a laugh, with Damon playing a reliable straight man.

Chau is a surprisingly good addition to the mix as well, after her Dr. Rivera agrees to let Rory and Cobby pretend to take her hostage while she helps Rory work through his issues. Her therapized dialogue is a humorous juxtaposition with the chaos they’re experiencing, including a spectacular car chase that takes the trio through the Back Bay, the tunnels of I-93, and onto the Esplanade.

Liman makes sure the action half of the action-comedy is well-represented, pulling out his “Bourne Identity” roadmap for the car chases and his “Edge of Tomorrow” playbook for the gunplay. Damon and Affleck’s statuses as Boston’s favorite sons surely helped Liman secure permission for the Esplanade scene and a climactic shootout at City Hall, which adds to the verisimilitude.

The aforementioned scene at City Hall is the best example of a subtler, but equally effective vein of humor Liman taps throughout “The Instigators”: The characterization of law enforcement as equally inept as the movie’s criminals. 

Over and over, Rory and Cobby wander away from dozens of armed SWAT officers unscathed, either by setting off a diversion or simply walking out the back door. In the climactic standoff, Liman’s camera shows us the shoulder patches of over-eager officers from every New England state piling into the command center like something out of “Blues Brothers.” When one trigger-happy officer fires a bullet at City Hall, dozens of rooftop snipers turn the Brutalist building into Swiss cheese. 

“Does everybody in this town have to be a f****** hero,” Cobby mutters after encountering yet another nameless man in uniform whose role model seems to be Mark Wahlberg’s fictional cop in “Patriots Day.” You almost expect a chase scene to culminate with Affleck and Damon leading one of Boston’s finest down the infamous City Hall cop slide.

Clocking in at a brisk 102 minutes with credits, “The Instigators” is the perfect after-dinner streaming choice. Unlike its protagonists, it knows how to get in, do its job, and get out before overstaying its welcome.

Rating: *** (out of 4)

“The Instigators” will be released in theaters August 2 before streaming on Apple TV+ starting August 9.