So close, yet so fah. The Boston-set heist movie “The Instigators,” on a few screens here and there and streaming on Apple TV+ Aug. 9, features a relaxed-bordering-on-napping Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as glib everymen enlisted by some underworld overactors, led by Michael Stuhlbarg, to steal the mayor’s reelection campaign slush fund. When the heist goes south, the movie follows their attempt to stay alive and get at least a little rich for their trouble.
Damon’s character, Rory, is the sullen, taciturn, depressed one. He needs money for a sympathetic reason: His child support payments have stacked up, unpaid, for too long, and he’s quietly desperate to improve a tenuous relationship with his teenaged son. Affleck’s playing the motormouth here, the formerly incarcerated wiseacre Cobby, who takes a shine to Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau) once she becomes enmeshed in her patient’s dangerous life outside her office.
Damon, Affleck and Chau know their business, and they’re super-solid. So is Stuhlbarg and (as a fellow criminal) Alfred Molina. So why does “The Instigators” fail to instigate much of anything?
It’s the old truism: Everything has a chance to go wrong with a film long before the actors arrive on set. This script by Affleck and Chuck MacLean may know the territory, geographically, but this is a banter movie dominated by murmured asides and half-hearted zinger and a barrage of tin-ear profanity where the punchlines should go.
Also, director Doug Liman: miscast. Coming off the drudgery of his “Roadhouse” remake, he’s dealing with a relatively lighthearted project this time, in theory more about amusement than violence. Yet Liman’s framing, shooting and pacing of the action has a way of promising bigger thrills and a higher-velocity comic thriller than “The Instigators” can deliver. The script’s sardonic tone suggests “Grosse Pointe Blank” on a much larger scale, or an “Ocean’s Eleven” vibe — both Damon and Affleck appeared in the “Ocean’s” remakes — without the beautiful threads. Liman’s movie passes the time, but that’s not a recommendation. Just a fact.
Here’s your non-sequitur for the day. Watching Affleck and Damon muttering through the paces, I remembered something Steve Guttenberg told me back in 1987 (!) during an interview for the “Rear Window” knockoff “The Bedroom Window.” It’s a film few remember, and fewer champion. “I mean, whaddya want?” the “Police Academy” and “Diner” star said, laughing. “It’s just a two-hour piece of (expletive) movie.”
“The Instigators” isn’t that bad, but it’s lazy, low-stakes stuff. Everyone on screen has done and been better.
“The Instigators” — 2 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for pervasive language and some violence)
Running time: 1:41
How to watch: Streaming on Apple TV+
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
