Tom's Guide

5 movies like 'The Instigators' but better

By Josh Bell,

3 days ago

With a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes , director Doug Liman’s crime comedy “The Instigators” (now streaming on Apple TV Plus ) has not exactly been a hit with critics. That’s a bit surprising since it seems like a formula that would be hard to mess up. Yet somehow, pretty much every surefire element fails in this story about a pair of bumbling Boston robbers on the run after a heist gone wrong.

Matt Damon and Casey Affleck have terrible chemistry as the bickering criminal morons, there’s no suspense or excitement to the plot and nobody is worth rooting for. Among the overstuffed and overqualified supporting cast, only Hong Chau comes out relatively unscathed, and the entire purpose of her psychiatrist character is to point out everyone’s bad choices.

If you’re looking for a more successful heist/chase thriller, here are five movies to stream instead.

‘The Town’

Casey Affleck’s brother Ben did a much better job with his own Boston-set heist movie. Affleck’s second film as a director follows in the footsteps of his Oscar-nominated debut “Gone Baby Gone,” with another crime story set among Boston’s working class. Affleck plays a bank robber who starts an ill-advised romantic relationship with a hostage (Rebecca Hall) from one of his jobs while keeping his identity a secret from her.

The excellent supporting cast includes Jeremy Renner, Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper as fellow criminals, with Jon Hamm as the FBI agent trying to bring down the crew. They bring a sense of lived-in humanity to the rough-edged characters, and Affleck is just as adept at staging thrilling robberies and car chases as he is at evoking the vibrant neighborhood life in the movie’s corner of Boston.

Rent/buy at Apple or Amazon

‘Ocean’s Eleven’

Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are both key members of the stellar ensemble cast in director Steven Soderbergh’s giddily entertaining heist movie, set against the glittering backdrop of the Las Vegas Strip. A superior remake of the 1960 Rat Pack movie, Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” stars George Clooney as master thief Danny Ocean, with Brad Pitt as his right-hand man Rusty Ryan.

Danny and Rusty put together an 11-person crew to rob a trio of casinos owned by mogul Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), and it’s a delight to watch their elaborate plan come together. Damon plays pickpocket Linus Caldwell, with Affleck as one of two bickering mechanic brothers, alongside Scott Caan. They fit perfectly within the larger group, as Soderbergh presents a stylish, playful and sometimes sexy crime drama, which is just as elegantly constructed as Danny’s scheme.

Rent/buy at Apple or Amazon

‘Quick Change’

Bill Murray’s only film as a director (collaborating with co-director Howard Franklin) is also set primarily in the aftermath of a heist, although in this case, the initial robbery goes exactly as planned. The problems arise when the crew played by Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid attempt to get out of New York City with their loot, only to encounter a series of frustrating and often absurd obstacles.

Although they’re excellent at planning and executing an intricate million-dollar robbery of a secure bank, they’re nearly defeated by road construction, fire trucks, and a confused cab driver. Murray infuses the movie with his deadpan sense of humor, plus some of the melancholy he’d bring to his acclaimed later performances. It’s an underrated comedy and an oddly sweet tribute to the craziness of New York City.

Watch on Tubi

‘Burn After Reading’

The Coen brothers know all about inept criminals, and few criminals are more inept than the overly ambitious gym employees played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand in this labyrinthine comedy. The excessive complexity is part of the joke, as the Coens mock the convoluted plots of spy movies like Doug Liman’s “The Bourne Identity,” placing a pair of dimwits at the center of the clandestine intrigue.

Those dimwits believe that they can leverage classified information accidentally left behind by former CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), but the information isn’t as valuable as they think it is. “Report back to me when it makes sense,” J.K. Simmons’ exasperated CIA supervisor tells his assistant, and the most amusing thing about “Burn After Reading” is that none of this secretive and often violent activity makes any sense to anyone involved.

Watch on Netflix

‘Hell or High Water’

Like Matt Damon’s character in “The Instigators,” the brothers played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster in this Western-influenced thriller commit crimes primarily out of necessity. They’re deeply in debt thanks to predatory loans their late mother took out on their family estate, and they only target branches of the small regional bank that holds their debt.

That’s just one way that writer Taylor Sheridan and director David Mackenzie use the film as a commentary on the struggles of the rural working class. The message never overshadows the engaging, oddball characters, though, and Pine and Foster are matched by Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham as the Texas Rangers investigating the robberies. Sheridan’s dialogue is full of quirky turns of phrase, and Mackenzie captures both the desolation and the heart of the West Texas setting.