The Instigators

By Joanna Langfield

What a waste of a great cast.

You’ve seen this movie before. We all have. But I had hopes because, I mean, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Toby Jones, Ron Perlman, Alfred Molina and Jack Harlow? I mean, come on. But even director Doug Liman can’t instigate this all into anything more than a somewhat amiable hapless heist.

Here’s the set up. Damon, a depressed 60 year old who needs some cash, volunteers for a job, involving stealing cash from the political fund of a Boston mayor who is up for re-election. He, Harlow and Affleck are to burst in to the celebratory ballroom and make off with all the cash being donated. Of course, things go awry and off are our odd couple of bumblers, trying to make off with not just the goods, but their lives intact.

For the record, there’s a sympathetic psychiatrist, not so masterful masterminds and a few scary looking bad guys. And yes, there are a few good jokes that pop up along the way. But, unfortunately, they wind up lost in the sad sauce of too much story and not enough inspiration. Most of the cast shows up for a few scenes and then takes off, maybe knowing what they’re up against. It’s the reliably solid Damon and an impressively committed Affleck (who co-wrote the screenplay) who we spend the most time with and their company is never bad. And, at least for me, neither is the scenery. Set mostly in Boston, I enjoyed looking at the backdrops of the town in which I used to live, especially when the rest of the movie seemed content to just let my mind wander.