Matt Damon and Casey Affleck Have Fun on the Run in The Instigators: Review

The Pitch: Rory (Matt Damon) is a veteran who’s struggling both financially as well as in his therapy sessions with Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau) — but it’s his money troubles that lead him to getting teamed up with alcoholic deadbeat-with-a-heart-of-gold Cobby (Casey Affleck) in a criminal enterprise. The target: the mayor of Boston (Ron Perlman). The score: hundreds of thousands of dollars. The screw-up potential for the instigators: huge.

On the Run Again: The Instigators is directly inspired by classic action comedies like Midnight Run and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, according to star/co-writer Casey Affleck, and that influence is definitely felt throughout all 90 minutes of Doug Liman’s low-key heist flick. While the stakes are real as Rory and Cobby bumble their way through the film, the tone remains light — a tricky balance to pull off, but largely successful here.

The cinematography captures all the beauty of a grey Boston winter it can, a chilly vibe always hovering in the air, while the plot keeps things simple, as odd couple Rory and Cobby go on the run after their attempt at crime goes poorly. And though the scale of the action is at times quite impressive (including a city-wide car chase where multiple teams of law enforcement are after them), things remain intimately focused on these characters.

Affleck and Damon, Together Again (Sorta): Both Affleck and Matt Damon make the most of their roles — leaning on their natural charisma (and, in the case of Affleck, his specific gift for gab), while also still feeling like they’re playing unique individuals.

You don’t always get that from movie stars like Damon in particular, who have enough of an established persona to show up and just be themselves on screen. Yet Rory is well-drawn, from his quiet despair and shame at not being able to reconnect with his family to his anxiety over committing his first real felony, which he soothes by asking questions and taking notes.

This does lead to a random moment where Jack Harlow, playing another accomplice in the heist, full-on quotes The Wire with no acknowledgment. (“Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?” — thankfully, Harlow leaves out the N-word originally used by Stringer Bell.) Maybe no one realized it at the time.