Avis Metacritic

Thanks to a witty script and a charming cast led by Damon and Affleck, The Instigators is a fun heist film with heart that blends the right dose of humor, action, and emotion for a comedy you can watch again and again.

Like a well-executed heist, the film knows how to get in and get out with minimal fuss.

There’s a lot to be said for a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be and hits that exact mark; it’s not that The Instigators lacks ambition, but like its characters, it doesn’t dream too big. It shows up to do its job — finding the fun.

From a filmmaking perspective, it’s no easy feat taking what looks like so much chaos and organizing it into a character-driven comedy, but that’s just what Affleck and co-writer (and “City on a Hill” series creator) Chuck MacLean have accomplished, giving Liman the blueprint to alternate between unpredictable set-pieces and more relaxed examples of male bonding.

If nothing else, Damon and Affleck’s Beacon Street Wild Ride reminds you that movie stars plus car crashes, divided by gunshots and laughs, was part of a regular, balanced American-cinema breakfast.

The Instigators makes exceptional use of Damon, Affleck, and the rest of its impeccable roster. It's just a shame that even this cast can't make this add up to more than a movie that's, quite simply, the sum of its parts.

Damon and Affleck are low-key one of the most perfectly measured duos of the last 25 years . . . so it’s no surprise that they bounce off of each other so well here, but their natural chemistry is more pronounced in the context of a movie where everything around them feels so forced, and their characters’ grounding idiocy is more refreshing in the context of a movie that betrays that realism at every turn.

The sole thing it instigates is frustration over its lethargic unoriginality.

It’s not terrible but it’s far from great, instead landing in that dispiriting morass best identified as “passable entertainment,” designed to make critics grasp for new ways to say “Meh.”

Some passable entertainment here but there’s not much adrenaline.