“Ocean’s Eleven” spoiled us for heist films.
We expect movie thieves to be dashing, debonair and oh, so good at their job.
Not “The Instigators.”
The quasi-buddy comedy follows crooks who couldn’t rob a baby’s bottle without setting off alarms. That’s the best part of a tale told by terrific actors scrambling to bring life to a middling script.
Rory (Matt Damon) and Cobby (Casey Affleck) are down on their luck in different, if obscure, ways when the story opens.
Rory wants to reconnect with his estranged son, according to therapy sessions with his no-nonsense shrink (Hong Chau). Cobby gets grief from a local bar owner who knows he’s one dumb move away from going back to jail.
So it makes Hollywood Movie Sense that they’d risk it all on a heist to ease their financial pain.
The plot appears foolproof, at least to them. Sneak into a Boston hotel where a lot of dirty money is just begging to be stolen. Wave a gun around to maintain order.
In. Out. Easy peasy.
Except the plan proves anything but foolproof, and these mismatched souls must improvise to save their skin.
“The Instigators” looks great on paper, starting with the cast. Think Alfred Molina, Michael Stuhlbarg (playing against type), Paul Walter Hauser (wasted), Ving Rhames and Toby Jones.
Add Ron Perlman as the scenery-chewing mayor, and they could collectively read recipe ingredients and keep us engaged.
Director Doug Liman (“Road House” 2.0) makes Boston look both grimy and gorgeous, the latter courtesy of water-based shots that bask Beantown in a wondrous light. The few action scenes reflect the “Bourne Identity” director’s comfort with controlled mayhem.
It’s not about the action.
“The Instigators” starts out stone-cold sober with a few darkly comic lines. The more things go haywire, the wackier the story becomes. Little makes sense at this point, from characters who appear out of sheer plot contrivance to events that only make sense in a screenwriter’s warped imagination.
You’ll get a few chuckles from the Damon/Affleck banter, but it’s not enough to sustain a 90-plus minute film.
Still, the overall sloppiness is almost a selling point. The film feels disconnected from Hollywood formula for a good 40 minutes, and the results are invigorating. Sometimes we need to see life’s rough edges.
Even better?
When has Damon played such an incompetent soul? It suits him well, even if the screenplay suggests cognitive woes explain his dysfunction.
No. He’s just hapless by design.
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Chau, a rising star thanks to strong turns in “The Whale” and “The Menu,” does everything she can to make her therapist character click. She almost succeeds.
Perlman’s crooked pol shtick is out of Central Casting. Why not grant him a modicum of decency to stir things up?
It’s useless to think too much about “The Instigators.” It’s designed for casual viewing, a streaming lark with enough star power to grab our attention and keep it for lack of better options.
HiT or Miss: “The Instigators” works best as a palate cleanser to slick blockbuster fare. That faint praise speaks for itself.
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