Ocean’s Eleven co-stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck reunite for another action-packed heist comedy — this one from Damon’s old Bourne Identity director Doug Liman
As Matt Damon, like many other movie stars in recent years, continues taking his talents to the streaming world, he’s reuniting with some co-workers — and a city — he knows very well.
Both a star and producer of last year’s drama Air, which had a limited theatrical run before making its debut on Prime Video, he’s filling the same jobs and taking a similar path with this latest project. On the immediate heels of a week in theatres, seriocomic crime caper The Instigators hits Apple TV+ on Friday.
Filmed in and around Damon’s native Boston and directed by Doug Liman — who guided the actor through the first Bourne Identity flick back in 2002 before handing the directing reins to Paul Greengrass for the sequels — it also stars Casey Affleck, who was one of Damon’s cohorts in the Ocean’s series and Good Will Hunting. (Casey is also, of course, the younger brother of Damon’s bestie, Ben Affleck.)
The Instigators teams Oscar-winners Damon and Affleck as Rory and Cobby, seemingly ill-matched partners in the intended robbery of a corrupt politician, played by Ron Perlman. When their plans go awry, they have not only the cops, but crime kingpins and political power players on their trail. The duo’s only resource is Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau, who also worked with Damon on 2017’s Downsizing), who may be more hindrance than help as they flee through the city together.
Affleck pulled double-duty here, co-writing the movie with Chuck MacLean, an alumnus of the similarly Boston-based crime series City on a Hill. Meanwhile, on-camera, the ensemble is rounded out by an array of heavy-hitting character actors, including Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire), Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible), Alfred Molina (Three Pines), Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Jack Harlow (White Men Can’t Jump).
Teasing the film in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck referenced such classic action buddy comedies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Midnight Run, before specifying that: “The Instigators is about two strangers who are hired for a heist. They become frenemies and then become friends while Jack Harlow yells at us, Paul Walter Hauser insults us, Ving Rhames hunts us and Hong Chau keeps us alive.”
In the same EW interview, Damon added: “Casey Affleck and Chuck MacLean had created some great characters and a really fun world. More than anything, it was a chance to work with Doug and Casey together that I was the most excited about. And it’s always great to go back to Boston.”
Further expanding upon his long-overdue reunion with director Doug Liman, Damon said: “I can’t believe it took us 20 years to find something else to do together. Doug is one of the most creatively tenacious people I’ve ever met. He just won’t stop until the movie is as good as it can be, and that is the best possible thing you can feel from a director. I trust him completely.”
The Instigators, streaming Fridays on Apple TV+