A little poking around on the website Statista revealed some interesting information to me. In 2022, law enforcement across the United States did kind of a good job clearing certain kinds of crimes. 52.3 percent of homicides were solved, which is not bad!* Should those rates be higher? Sure, but consider that the United States spends less than one percent of GDP on policing.**

When I think about that 52.3 percent, I think there are probably two reasons for it. The first is that there are a lot of dedicated and smart law enforcement professionals out there busting their asses while being underfunded, underpaid, and undertrained. The second is that, by and large, criminals are stupid. 

Consider the drug dealer in West Virginia who posted a sign outside her house reading, “Due to snitches everyone entering my home is subject to being searched. All cell phones and drinks will be left outside! If you’re not a snitch, it won’t offend you if I search you!”*** Consider the couple arrested in Florida for DUI, who decided to have sex in the back of the patrol car.**** That’s just two examples, and I could easily go on. All I’m saying is, they can’t all be D.B. Cooper.  

Believe me when I tell you that, as much as I enjoy movies about criminal masterminds, unstoppable killers, and duplicitous gangsters, I enjoy just as much films about recidivistic ding-dongs. It doesn’t take much for me to have a good time. Doug Liman’s crime comedy The Instigators doesn’t exactly break new ground. But, as I mentioned, I had a good time.

While in therapy at the VA, we’re introduced to Marine veteran Rory (Matt Damon). He tells Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau) that things aren’t getting better in his personal life, with his ex-wife, or with his son. He says he needs $32,480 to pay off back child support and a blizzard of other debts. Rory has no idea how he’ll come up with the money, and he tells his therapist he’s thinking very seriously about “cashing in his ticket.” Dr. Rivera responds with, “Have you tried everything?”

You know what Rory hasn’t tried? Crime! He’s contacted by Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg), a wannabe crime lord, for a gig. Why does Mr. Besegai contact Rory? Does Rory have a specific set of skills that nobody else has? Is he a hidden criminal genius? No, he’s…ah…just some guy. And I should mention, just some guy of slightly below average intelligence. Again, they can’t all be D.B. Cooper.

Anyway, Rory arrives for the meeting, where he makes the acquaintance of motor-mouthed doofus Cobby (Casey Affleck), and wannabe hard guy Scalvo (Jack Harlow). Mr. Besengai lays out the plan. It turns out Boston Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) is up for re-election. Over the years, he’s squirreled away a titanic amount of kickback cash, and his election night gala has an entry fee of $500/person. If all goes according to plan, the three man crew will arrive silently by boat, easily overcome the few people working in the venue’s kitchen, quietly steal hundreds of thousands of dollars, and make their escape. 

Unfortunately, none of those things happen. Miccelli loses the election, the boat has technical problems, there are a good two to three dozen people in the kitchen, oh, and due to an error with the money pickup, the crew finds there’s only around three thousand bucks left. Then Rory and Cobby do a super awful job escaping, then they’re pursued by a dim-bulb hit man (Paul Walter Hauser) and a hard as nails corrupt cop (Ving Rhames), then they accidentally take Dr. Rivers hostage, then things get really complicated.

If you are the kind of person that expects realism in your motion pictures and delights in exclaiming, “That would never happen!” to the people you watch movies with, you will not enjoy The Instigators. This isn’t a movie about criminals in Boston, it’s a movie about “criminals” in “Boston.” Director Doug Liman has made a slick, handsome, and zippy crime comedy***** with virtually no connection to what we understand reality to be. Over and over, our heroes Rory and Cobby escape situations that would break or kill most people. For them, to quote online personality Ryan George, it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience. Why? Because the leads are Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, that’s why. Liman is all about making a movie that’s fast-paced and fun. 

Affleck and co-screenwriter Chuck MacLean additionally understood the assignment. They repeatedly place their two dingus protagonists into increasingly ridiculous situations and figure out how they wriggle out. All the while, we see Rory getting increasingly agitated by his circumstances and by Cobby’s weaponized wise-assery. Affleck and MacLean’s script keeps things bouncing along so fast that by the time you’d say, “Wait, that doesn’t make sense,” it’s moved on to something new. It may not be well plotted, but it’s fun.

So how do you get past a movie that doesn’t just bend reality, but kicks it in the teeth and scampers off, snickering evilly? You cast actors that are likable and/or fun. As Rory, Matt Damon makes a smart decision as to how he calibrates his performance. He knows that we know he’s playing a guy who’s suicidal. He also knows that too much psychological realism wrecks the tone of the movie he’s in. The choice Damon makes is to portray Rory as a likable dummy, while knowing just the right moments to briefly remind us that he’s in crisis. It’s a reminder that Damon is one of our more technically accomplished and subtle actors. Casey Affleck, on the other hand, is almost anti-subtle as Cobby. He’s playing a guy who is genetically incapable of knowing when to shut up, and who instinctively knows just the right thing to do to make a situation worse. Affleck does such good work when he plays yappy lowlives that we forget his impressive range.******

A successful criminal has the intelligence to plan for multiple contingencies, and the confidence to not needlessly draw attention to themselves. Luckily for law enforcement, the majority of crooks are dumb as toast, like the protagonists in The Instigators. I hope that some law enforcement professional watches this movie and thinks, “I’m so happy my job involves catching yo-yos like that as opposed to Hannibal Lecter.”

*There is the part where only 26.1 percent of rapes were closed, and a hilariously low 9.3 percent of vehicle thefts were successfully solved. 

**According to a fascinating article in The Atlantic, which you can read here.

***Per the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department. 

****Per People.com.

*****Does that make it a crimedy? Sure, if you want it to be!

******For an impressive Affleck performance, check out the unfortunately forgotten Gone Baby Gone.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.