Matt Damon’s The Instigators Debuts With Rotten Designation. (Photo Credit – Instagram)
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Critics are not into Matt Damon and Casy Affleck’s heist comedy film The Instigators. Ahead of the film’s streaming release, the Apple TV+ action comedy earned a rotten designation on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
The Instigators stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as Rory and Cobby, respectively. The duo portray two inexperienced robbers forced to flee with one of their therapists after a heist job goes awry. Instigators also sees Matt Damon reunite with director Doug Lima after the critical and commercial success of 2002’s The Bourne Identity.
However, unlike Bourne Identity, their new film failed to impress critics. While critics praised Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s performance, the movie itself was slammed for its unoriginal script, which was described as “banal” and “tedious.”
Matt Damon’s film The Instigators debuted with a 39% Rotten score and 51 reviews. Roger Ebert described it as “underwritten, dreary, tedious, inert, and without any stakes.”
Meanwhile, ABC News Peter Travers praised the lead actor’s performance but slammed the plot. He wrote, “Since heist movies are a dime a dozen, don’t get your hopes up. But thanks to the easy chemistry between Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, there is the kick of an acting job well done.”
AV club gave the movie a big thumbs down over the convoluted script. They wrote, “The Instigators can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a somewhat offbeat, convoluted crooks-on-the-run movie or an over-budgeted cookie-cutter action film.”
Meanwhile, Empire was not only impressed with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s performance but also with the film, describing it as “a crisply staged, breezily enjoyable flick.”
They added, “Matt Damon carries the film as a man out of his depth and Casey Affleck as a wiseass career criminal.”
However, the Daily Beast called it “a streaming Movie Dud.” The film will be released in select theaters on August 2 before streaming on Apple TV+ on August 9 2024.
