Johnny Deadline: THE INSTIGATORS

 by JB

Finally! What Rob D. has been lobbying for-- a genuine mid-budget, three-star movie.
There’s only one catch.

What’s better than a great, fun movie? A great, fun movie you were totally unaware of until a few minutes before you watched it. Go, Matt Damon.

I must confess, I was maybe semi-aware of this one. About once a month, my local cineplex hosts a Monday night “secret screening” of a first-run film, prior to its wide release date. Viewers don't learn the title of the film until it shows up on the screen. These screenings are only five bucks, but they have led to monthly angst on my part. Do I go? What will the film be? Do I take a chance?

Last month, the secret screening was The Bikeriders. I attended. I liked it a lot. I won. This month, I did not attend but the mystery was TEARING AT MY SOUL. The theater, it turns out, does advertise the running time and rating in advance, which tips off the amateur sleuths on the Google machine; I discovered that the secret screening had been The Instigators.

I had heard nothing about this film but somehow became sad that I had missed it. I assumed it was opening the Friday after the screening... and I was only half wrong. As it turns out, it's "wide release" took place exclusively on Apple TV+.

FULL DISCLOSURE: The Instigators actually opened in "select" theaters on August 2nd. Where were those select theaters, exactly? Nebraska? Idaho? Maybe Boston? Certainly not Oxnard, nor at any other theater within 30 miles of Oxnard.

A-ha! Santa Barbara! TIM COOK CAN'T MAKE ME drive to the American Riviera just to see a movie, so we fired up the Apple TV+ and popped some corn.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Rory (Matt Damon) has lost his wife, his son, and his job through a series of incidents that are never described or shown. He is in therapy. Because he needs a large (and specific) amount of money to pay some large and specific debts, he gets involved with some low-level criminals looking to rob the mayor of Boston. The unlikely thieves will take a boat to a wharf hotel, walk in, take the mayor’s money, and boat right out of there. What could possibly go wrong?

The Instigators has one of the best casts of 2024. Were some of these actors only on set for a day or two? Probably—but this is still a big honking parade of terrific actors: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Jack Harlow, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Andre De Shields, Ron Perlman, Toby Jones, Paul Walter Hauser, and Rob Gronkowski.

Damon and Affleck are the main event, and their grudging rapport is very entertaining; think DeNiro and Grodin in Midnight Run, or Goodman and Bridges in The Big Lebowski. Yes, I am comparing The Instigators to a Coen brothers’ film. Many other critics, it turns out, also compared this film to the work of the Coens, but that just made them think that this film is wanting in some way.

The Instigators fits squarely in a genre I love: the botched heist. I would also include in this genre The Killing, The Hot Rock, Dog Day Afternoon, Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Heat, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Den of Thieves, Baby Driver, and Ambulance. It’s fun to watch big-name stars screw things up, and because they are trapped in the narrative of a film, they cannot use their prestige, connections, or money to get themselves out of it.

Director Doug Liman is no stranger to action films; he directed Go, The Bourne Identity, and Edge of Tomorrow, among others. The Instigators features one of the best chase scenes you are likely to see this year: Damon, Affleck, and Chau take off in a BMW sedan and are chased around Boston by what seems to be the entire city police department and a SWAT team tank. Fun!

Do you like to travel? I do too! Especially in my armchair, which is free and has never fallen out of the sky. I enjoyed the fact that The Instigators was a 101-minute trip to Boston, full of heavy Boston accents from the likes of Damon and Affleck, who come by it naturally... and Stuhlbarg and Molina, who are both great actors; great shots of many parts of the city; and plenty of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups, often placed in the foreground of shots.

MY PREDICTION: Twenty years down the road, people will stumble upon The Instigators—either on commercial television or basic cable or a streaming service or the movie players that will by then be directly wired to our cerebellums—and say, “Where the hell has this fun little film BEEN?!” I agree wholeheartedly with Jonathon Wilson of Ready, Steady, Cut, who writes, “That’s the charm of The Instigators. It’s a laidback caper that doesn’t take itself very seriously and is just designed to entertain. Too few movies do that these days.”

MORE FULL DISCLOSURE: Most other critics are not being kind to this film, but I urge you to see it. The catch is, I realize that not all my readers subscribe to Apple TV+. I'm sorry about that, but I am not responsible for all of your unfortunate life choices. (I still subscribe to Hulu because back in 2016 I signed up for a free trial of the streaming service in order to see Ron Howard’s Beatles documentary Eight Days a Week and then forgot to cancel. So far, it has cost me $1,727.04 dollars to see Eight Days a Week for free. But I digress.)

Look—2024 has not, thus far, been a very good year for movies. The Instigators made my movie year just a little bit better.