by guest critic Michael Clark
From 1940 through 1965, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello starred in 38 features together. The former was the straight man and the latter was the oblivious, often flustered clown and together they birthed the “mismatched buddy” genre.
In the space of eight years (1949-1956), Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin starred in 17 movies and amped up the Abbott and Costello dynamic.
In the decades since, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor teamed up for four outings; Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte made two 48 Hrs. flicks; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones collaborated on three Men in Black productions; and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover joined forces four times in the Lethal Weapon franchise. A fifth installment has been “in development” since 2007.
In the non-franchise department, you’ve got Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting playing different characters in each while still exhibiting the most crucial mismatch component: friction through a clash of personalities.
Six of the best one-off titles fitting this description: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974); Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987); Midnight Run (1988); Tommy Boy (1995); Sideways (2004); and (the sole female-led title in the bunch) The Heat (2013) with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.
At this point, you might ask why aren’t you including The Blues Brothers (1980); Wayne’s World (1992); Dumb and Dumber (1994); Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004); and every Cheech & Chong movie here? It’s simple really. The leads in these movies are variations on the same person (retro hipsters, basement nerds, dim-wits, and stoners times four, respectively).
This week sees the release of The Instigators, an action comedy starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. The movie falls squarely into the mismatched cinematic matrix with the added bonus of being a zany, but grounded and not-far-fetched heist flick.
For Damon, it is his seventh movie co-starring alongside Affleck (Good Will Hunting, the Ocean's franchise, Gerry, Interstellar and Oppenheimer) and his second pairing with director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity).
Damon plays Rory, a depressed, down-on-his-luck divorcee; deep in debt, and prohibited from seeing his son for multiple reasons. The movie opens with him in a session with his psychiatrist Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), displaying every known sign of denial, none of which she buys.
For reasons never made clear, Rory is drafted for a quick, in-and-out heist of an election night celebration of a long-serving, corrupt-to-the-bone Boston mayor (Ron Perlman).
The job is being coordinated by Besegai (a terribly underused Michael Stuhlbarg), an easily-agitated wingnut whose half-baked plan is riddled with holes and possible stumbling blocks.
Joining Rory on the gig is point man Scalvo (Jack Harlow) and seasoned thief Cobby (Affleck), an ex-con with an above-average sense of droll humor and an intriguing backstory that is doled out in dollops for the duration of the narrative. He’s much deeper and more honorable than he initially appears.
Co-written by Affleck and Chuck Maclean, The Instigators isn’t sexy or worldly and, frankly, is kind of low-rent on purpose. Rory and Cobby don’t know each other going in and it quickly becomes clear they really don’t care for each other.
Cobby seems to have given up on life and Rory isn’t far behind. The financial windfall promised by Besegai seems too good to be true and the getting-in and getting-out of the job far too easy but Cobby and Rory don’t seem to care. Just the promise of any kind of payday is enough for them to forge ahead.
It was at the 30 minute mark that The Instigators started reminding me of the Newman-Redford movies and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot.
Rory and Cobby become bonded by breaking the law; the former new to it and the latter a seasoned, albeit unsuccessful long timer. Their collective indifference regarding their increasingly failing venture allows them the luxury – if that’s the right word – of taking chances even the most brazen crooks wouldn’t dare attempt. They take huge gambles and are legitimately surprised when some of them actually pan out.
The bond between Rory and Cobby is long in coming, hard-earned and never completely cemented. They never really grow to like each other but share something resembling mutual respect. Rory is involved solely for a financial means to an end and Cobby, only to having something to do to avoid boredom.
The story doesn’t end with a neat little bow, but nor does it take an easy out and is stangely poetic.
The fact that some (barely) working-class bad guys are attempting to rob another bad guy (a smarmy lifetime politician awash in graft) is a relatively easy sell to audiences. Despite their many shortcomings on multiple levels, I liked Rory and Cobby. They are relatable and, in a skewed way, endearing. I wanted them to succeed or, at least, not to die.
The only scene in the movie that took me out of the moment was an extended chase sequence when Rory, Cobby, and Dr. Rivera (at the time a “willing” hostage) tear through Boston, eluding hundreds of police vehicles in an only-in-the-movies sort of way that mirrored Damon and Liman’s work on The Bourne Identity. It was just a little too farfetched and hard to swallow.
The filmmakers somewhat make up for this in the third act in a manner that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s ending for The Killing where cash literally rains down from the sky.
I hope against hope all involved with The Instigators resist the temptation to entertain a sequel. While it is original and provides something of an open ending, one serving was enough, thank you.
That said, I would love to see Damon, Affleck (and maybe his older brother Ben, also a co-producer here) combine forces again in another story with different characters. The collective chemistry displayed here is unorthodox, but immediate, engrossing and eminently agreeable.
The Instigators is rated R for pervasive language and some violence. The movie is now playing in select theaters and begins streaming on Apple TV+ on Aug. 9.
In the space of eight years (1949-1956), Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin starred in 17 movies and amped up the Abbott and Costello dynamic.
In the decades since, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor teamed up for four outings; Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte made two 48 Hrs. flicks; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones collaborated on three Men in Black productions; and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover joined forces four times in the Lethal Weapon franchise. A fifth installment has been “in development” since 2007.
In the non-franchise department, you’ve got Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting playing different characters in each while still exhibiting the most crucial mismatch component: friction through a clash of personalities.
Six of the best one-off titles fitting this description: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974); Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987); Midnight Run (1988); Tommy Boy (1995); Sideways (2004); and (the sole female-led title in the bunch) The Heat (2013) with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.
At this point, you might ask why aren’t you including The Blues Brothers (1980); Wayne’s World (1992); Dumb and Dumber (1994); Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004); and every Cheech & Chong movie here? It’s simple really. The leads in these movies are variations on the same person (retro hipsters, basement nerds, dim-wits, and stoners times four, respectively).
This week sees the release of The Instigators, an action comedy starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. The movie falls squarely into the mismatched cinematic matrix with the added bonus of being a zany, but grounded and not-far-fetched heist flick.
For Damon, it is his seventh movie co-starring alongside Affleck (Good Will Hunting, the Ocean's franchise, Gerry, Interstellar and Oppenheimer) and his second pairing with director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity).
Damon plays Rory, a depressed, down-on-his-luck divorcee; deep in debt, and prohibited from seeing his son for multiple reasons. The movie opens with him in a session with his psychiatrist Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), displaying every known sign of denial, none of which she buys.
For reasons never made clear, Rory is drafted for a quick, in-and-out heist of an election night celebration of a long-serving, corrupt-to-the-bone Boston mayor (Ron Perlman).
The job is being coordinated by Besegai (a terribly underused Michael Stuhlbarg), an easily-agitated wingnut whose half-baked plan is riddled with holes and possible stumbling blocks.
Joining Rory on the gig is point man Scalvo (Jack Harlow) and seasoned thief Cobby (Affleck), an ex-con with an above-average sense of droll humor and an intriguing backstory that is doled out in dollops for the duration of the narrative. He’s much deeper and more honorable than he initially appears.
Co-written by Affleck and Chuck Maclean, The Instigators isn’t sexy or worldly and, frankly, is kind of low-rent on purpose. Rory and Cobby don’t know each other going in and it quickly becomes clear they really don’t care for each other.
Cobby seems to have given up on life and Rory isn’t far behind. The financial windfall promised by Besegai seems too good to be true and the getting-in and getting-out of the job far too easy but Cobby and Rory don’t seem to care. Just the promise of any kind of payday is enough for them to forge ahead.
It was at the 30 minute mark that The Instigators started reminding me of the Newman-Redford movies and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot.
Rory and Cobby become bonded by breaking the law; the former new to it and the latter a seasoned, albeit unsuccessful long timer. Their collective indifference regarding their increasingly failing venture allows them the luxury – if that’s the right word – of taking chances even the most brazen crooks wouldn’t dare attempt. They take huge gambles and are legitimately surprised when some of them actually pan out.
The bond between Rory and Cobby is long in coming, hard-earned and never completely cemented. They never really grow to like each other but share something resembling mutual respect. Rory is involved solely for a financial means to an end and Cobby, only to having something to do to avoid boredom.
The story doesn’t end with a neat little bow, but nor does it take an easy out and is stangely poetic.
The fact that some (barely) working-class bad guys are attempting to rob another bad guy (a smarmy lifetime politician awash in graft) is a relatively easy sell to audiences. Despite their many shortcomings on multiple levels, I liked Rory and Cobby. They are relatable and, in a skewed way, endearing. I wanted them to succeed or, at least, not to die.
The only scene in the movie that took me out of the moment was an extended chase sequence when Rory, Cobby, and Dr. Rivera (at the time a “willing” hostage) tear through Boston, eluding hundreds of police vehicles in an only-in-the-movies sort of way that mirrored Damon and Liman’s work on The Bourne Identity. It was just a little too farfetched and hard to swallow.
The filmmakers somewhat make up for this in the third act in a manner that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s ending for The Killing where cash literally rains down from the sky.
I hope against hope all involved with The Instigators resist the temptation to entertain a sequel. While it is original and provides something of an open ending, one serving was enough, thank you.
That said, I would love to see Damon, Affleck (and maybe his older brother Ben, also a co-producer here) combine forces again in another story with different characters. The collective chemistry displayed here is unorthodox, but immediate, engrossing and eminently agreeable.
The Instigators is rated R for pervasive language and some violence. The movie is now playing in select theaters and begins streaming on Apple TV+ on Aug. 9.
Grade: B
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