Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s crime caper showcases Boston locations but struggles with plot and character development.
Mildly entertaining, the shot-in-Boston crime caper “The Instigators” offers little beyond the familiar hometown scenery. From Wollaston Beach to Fenway Park to Faneuil Hall, the movie winds its way through Boston’s best spots, capped off with an over-the-top climax at City Hall that sends plausibility packing. They even blow up Malachy’s Saloon in Quincy, a place I used to frequent after work at The Patriot Ledger. Sorry, Quincy!
This high-volume local flavor comes as no surprise, considering Cambridge pals Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play the leads with Quincy native Chuck MacLean (“City on a Hill”) as co-writer. Those connections explain the half-dozen or so digs at Quincy, where hotwiring a car is “part of the public school curriculum” and “loony toons push mops.” Coincidentally, Affleck won an Oscar for playing a grief-stricken janitor from Quincy in “Manchester By the Sea.”
Speaking of MacLean, he was my intern for a hot minute in the summer of 2008. He wrote a handful of stories for the features section, including a piece on Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart. He got canned, years later telling other local outlets it was due to his “fat mouth,” but really, it was a mutual parting. I matched him F-bomb for F-bomb, especially the day he came back from reporting a story at Nantasket Beach, sunburned and pissed off because no one would talk to him. We sat in the glass conference room of the old newsroom, where I told him journalism wasn’t his thing. He agreed, and out the door he went to chase his Hollywood dream. Later, we even tacked his resume up on the bulletin board as a memento. The “male model” bullet point made us laugh.
Fast forward 15 years, and MacLean brings his South Shore roots—he’s a Plymouth South High School graduate—to the screen, teaming up with Affleck to write “The Instigators.” The movie unfolds in a day, following Rory (Damon) and Cobby (Affleck), a pair of mismatched thieves set to pull off a big score. Rory is a straight-laced Marine strapped with $32,480 in child support debt. Cobby is the wise guy ex-con who uses a neighborhood kid to unlock the breath-analysis device on his motorcycle. The two are thrust into a chaotic pursuit through the city after their attempt to steal from Boston’s corrupt mayor (Ron Perlman) goes awry, and a cop gets killed. “Everybody in New England is after us,” Rory says.
Desperate to evade both law enforcement and criminal adversaries, they enlist the help of Rory’s therapist, played by Hong Chau, Damon’s co-star in “Downsizing.” She joins the fray out of fear that Rory might kill himself, always asking, “How does that make you feel?” The film also reunites Damon with director Doug Liman for the first time since 2002’s “The Bourne Identity.” Liman needs a win after the embarrassing “Road House” remake earlier this year.
It’s clear the filmmakers have watched many gritty crime dramas, including the Boston ones, and are aiming for a comedic take on the genre. The result? Laughable dialogue and one-dimensional characters. Affleck and Damon get their chance to be somewhat serious and confess their characters’ past sins and motivations in a scene that comes right on schedule. But mostly, they’re just reluctant partners trying to save their asses. The biggest head-scratcher is that they don’t have any of that bumbling-crook chemistry to keep us engaged in their situation. I didn’t see that one coming with these two.
Affleck is a charmer, though, with low-key sparks flying between him and Chau. His come-ons feel weirdly earnest. I liked how their story wrapped up. Unfortunately, the rest of the star-studded cast—Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jack Harlow, and Alfred Molina—are stuck in various tough-guy roles, dabbling in baked goods and struggling with the local accent. Stuhlbarg has a hard time with the pronunciation of “Quinzee.” Ving Rhames drops in from outer space, driving an armored police vehicle. He just sort of shows up in places. By the way, Perlman, who also appears in the made-in-Mass movies “Don’t Look Up” and the upcoming Liam Neeson crime drama “Absolution,” is becoming a staple in Boston films. That’s not a bad thing.
Despite its flaws, “The Instigators” has moments that hint at a better movie. The choreographed mayhem of the big car chase along the Esplanade is a well-executed thrill. Affleck and Damon also draw laughs during an argument about whether there’s an armed guard in the back of the armored truck they hijack. But after the umpteenth reference to “shit-bums from Quincy,” the Boston setting starts to feel like a gimmick. I wonder how this will play in Quincy, Illinois.
‘The Instigators’
Rated: R for pervasive language and some violence.
Cast: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Hong Chau, Paul Walter Hauser, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina and Jack Harlow
Director: Doug Liman
Writers: Casey Affleck, Chuck MacLean
Runtime: 101 minutes
Where: In theaters Aug. 2 and streaming on Apple TV+ Aug. 9
Grade: B-
Boston Movie News 
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