There is a sequence midway through The Instigators, the second (and far superior) movie directed by Doug Liman to come out this year after his piss-poor Road House remake, that is so dynamic and delightful it took my mind back to the 1980 classic musical comedy The Blues Brothers. Specifically, there is a car chase that is played with such a similarly gleeful (if not quite as loose) style that you can't shake the feeling it must be an homage. Much like how we saw Jake and Elwood Blues go on a madcap chase with cop car after cop car crashing into each other with increasing absurdity, The Instigator's scene shares a similarly irreverent edge. Even as parts of the movie still stall out, the moments it crashes through chaos have charm to spare.
At the center of this chaos are two of the worst robbers ever put to screen. Rory and Cobby (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) are troubled guys brought on for a job to steal money from the corrupt mayor of Boston, played by the always reliable Ron Perlman, on election night. Problems arise because the "brains" of the operation is a man named Scalvo, played by rapper Jack Harlow (still futilely trying to act despite last year's wearisome White Men Can't Jump remake). Scalvo gets key details egregiously, humorously wrong. Left holding the bag, Rory and Cobby must flee from not just the mayor and his supercop (Ving Rhames), but other criminals looking to capitalize on the catastrophe by getting the cash.
This is all pretty flimsy, yet still fun, nonsense that feels like it's trying to do its best Soderbergh impression in the vein of something akin to 2017's more solidly silly Logan Lucky. However, things get kicked up a notch when Rory's therapist, Donna, gets thrown into the mix. Played by the excellent Hong Chau of this year's killer Kinds of Kindness, she soon is taken along in the aforementioned car chase that remains the high point of the whole journey. As they weave a deadly dance through traffic while it seems every police department is chasing them, she provides the best punchlines of the entire affair as Donna tries to talk Rory through what he's feeling. Indeed, any moment Chau's on screen is where The Instigators sings. Alas, she is ultimately underutilized.
Still, the banter between Damon and Affleck keeps things moving along at a consistently humorous pace. The film is a little uncertain about how dark it wants to get, always pulling itself back from fully embracing what could be a truly mirthful and macabre ride to be more down the middle. The script, as written by Affleck and Chuck MacLean (City on a Hill), is at its best when it seems like it's about to leap into being more of a wild farce. Namely, there is one uproarious shootout near the end where everything goes so off the rails you have to respect how it feels like you're transported into a bizarro funhouse mirror world where a small army of police unleash a hail of gunfire without any restraint. Then again, this is America, so maybe that isn't so strange.
There is little to get invested in on an emotional level in terms of Rory's mental health or the halfhearted familial backstory that pushed him to take the job, leaving things a bit shallow. The whole film reveals itself to be quite narrow the longer you look at it. That The Instigators wraps itself up in a nice little bow with an emotional payoff not fully earned proves to be a closing miss, but it can't take away from the hits it managed to land along the way. At the same time, that you'd rather take a drive with Jake and Elwood as opposed to Rory and Cobby is inescapable, no matter how quickly the latter duo speed on in their best attempt to look the part.
The Instigators
