Doug Liman’s second film of the year, The Instigators, has finally been released. The question is, will it hold up against the reviews for Road House?
Following a huge success with Prime Video’s Road House, Liman’s next direct-to-streaming movie has finally arrived, but this time at Apple TV+. The Instigators follows two robbers (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon) as their robbery goes wrong and soon turn to one of their therapists for assistance.
The film is the first reunion between director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Mr and Mrs Smith) and Matt Damon since The Bourne Identity, which kickstarted a franchise and forever changed Hollywood action shooting techniques, so it is quite obvious there is a lot of intrigue about the potential of the film.
The film is at its best when the dynamic between its two leads is at the forefront, which is admittedly a lot of the time but is interspersed between the plot itself, largely set by Michael Stuhlbarg and Ron Perlman’s characters, both of whom lack depth.
What little action in this film is phenomenal and a really exciting experience, due to the combination of stunt driving and good comedic delivery from Affleck, Damon and Hong Chau, with the latter playing the therapist in the film.
The introduction of that singular action sequence into the film also marks a turning point for the film after a flat and rushed first act, invigorating it with life. The film lacks character arcs and serves more as mindless entertainment, but similarly to Road House, that’s all the film wants and needs to be.
It does feel as if the story was crafted around the cast however, with the A-list and B-list cast members being attached before the clunky and generic story fits around it. The result is a story that doesn’t have time to breathe or develop its characters but uses them as comedic vessels to provide a reason to reunite Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, after their most recent collaboration with Oppenheimer.
The Instigators struggles to interest the audience with a flaccid story and mediocre intrigue, which is elevated —and arguably saved— by its cast and the dynamic between Casey Affleck’s Cobby and Matt Damon’s Rory.
The Instigators stars Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Paul Walter Hauser, Hong Chau, Ron Perlman, Alfred Molina, Jack Harlow, Michael Stuhlbarg and Ving Rhames. It is directed by Doug Liman, written by Casey Affleck and Chuck Maclean, produced by both Ben Affleck and Damon and is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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