| Apple TV+ | Release Date: August 2, 2024 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
13
Mixed:
20
Negative:
5
|
Watch Now
Critic Reviews
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.
Read full review
Much of The Instigators feels a little lost somewhere between Ocean’s Eleven and The Town, but the movie—starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as desperate strangers who get paired up for an ill-fated heist in Boston—has enough camaraderie between the leads, as well as a sharply comic supporting turn from Hong Chau, to make for a breezy crime farce.
Read full review
Screen RantAug 1, 2024
The Instigators is proof it can be very difficult to balance action, comedy and drama and nail a tone that fits the movie while still staying true to the genres. That said, the movie does have enough comedy, and a strong enough duo with Damon and Affleck, that it's still entertaining and fun to watch.
Read full review
Besides the cast, the best thing The Instigators has going for it is Liman’s pacing. Maybe in some earlier, irreversibly bygone era it would seem like less of a virtue, but there’s something to be said for a modern director who still has the skills necessary to move from one thing to another with a minimum of wasted time.
Read full review
More than anything, The Instigators is ethnic comedy if being a white guy from Boston counts as its own ethnicity, an argument that Damon and the Afflecks have spent a good portion of their careers making. Those local specifics and in-jokes may not amount to much, but they are what distinguishes this film from other half-baked crime movies.
Read full review
IndieWireAug 1, 2024
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.
Read full review
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score


























