★★★★★ | I like them apples
I love movies that are unassuming. The kind that know what they are, and are excellent at it. The Instigators is one of these movies. It knows precisely how long, and what it needs to be. There isn’t a wasted minute, nor a plot point that isn’t necessary. It doesn’t make a lick a sense, and it’s often so freewheeling it forgets about characters entirely.
But does that matter if you’re having fun? I say no, it doesn’t. Because I never thought about these things while watching the film. It was only after that pesky logic tried to get in the way.
A lot happens in The Instigators, yet it feels like a small movie. Our heroes are screw-ups who’ve barely left the neighborhoods they grew up in. When they make plans to get out of town, it might as well be to the moon. This gives the movie a homespun feel, which makes it endearing. The heroes might be screw-ups, but they’re familiar screw-ups. We want them to win, because in a way they’re like us. The little guys.
The plot, such as it is, concerns a heist that is doomed from the start. It’s the kind of gig people take when they’ve got nothing left to lose. Our heroes rob the mayor of Chicago on the night of his re-election, and everything spirals out of control. A lot happens, and most of it is too fun to spoil. When the smoke clears, you can see the trail that led there, but I would be surprised if anyone could figure out how it makes sense.
Casting Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as the bickering duo is a stroke of genius. Their chemistry has the energy and crackle that only a lifetime of friendship can produce. For the story to work, they’re strangers. But there’s a sense that in Boston, if you’re from the right neighborhood, you might as well be brothers.
Damon is a former marine, now on the outs with his estranged wife and son. Affleck is a petty crook who makes the neighbor’s kid fool the breathalyzer lock on his bike. “I figured I’d give myself a year,” Damon tells his shrink, “and if I still felt like this, I could punch my ticket”.
It’s a gruff, hard sentiment, and Damon plays it with subtle heartbreak. There’s a lot of anger in these men, and even more disappointment. He’s built a career of this balancing act of machismo and vulnerability, and no one is better at it. In one of the funniest moments of the film, he falls back to a lesson learned just moments earlier, before realizing he never quite figured out what comes next. It’s a masterclass in deflating expectations in a way that’s endearing and tragic.
For his part, Affleck brings tremendous hangdog energy to a motormouth that’s mostly bark and a surprising bite. It’s a bit that can easily sour well before the film is over, yet Affleck brings genuine warmth to his acerbic wit. The more he talks about nothing, the more he reveals of himself.
Balancing between the duo is the incomparable Hong Chau, who delights in everything she’s in. She’s Damon’s shrink, a no-nonsense MD for veterans, who gives as good as she gets. Instead of becoming a third wheel, her presence gives the bickering a newfound energy that propels the film to even greater heights.
The movie picks up quickly and ends almost as soon as the action does. There’s no fat here, and we learn only what’s essential to the story. It comes in late and leaves early, and I love it for that. In the 90s, they called films like this “programmers”. You could schedule one in any theater at any time, and it would find an audience. Its sole mission is to deliver a good time, and in that regard The Instigators is as perfect as a movie can be.