Review: In 'The Instigators,' a heist goes terrifically wrong

ENT

Review: In 'The Instigators,' a heist goes terrifically wrong

2024-08-02 01:55 Last Updated At：02:01

Though depression lurks around the edges of “The Instigators,” Doug Liman’s heist movie is a loosely amiable return to South Boston for Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, who also co-wrote the film.

In the film’s opening moments, Rory (Damon), a former Marine, tells his therapist, Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), that after a lifetime of screw ups and disappointments, he’s not so much forlorn as simply ready to “cash in” his ticket. His phrase is a telling one for a film where midlife disappointments and a ramshackle heist-gone-wrong plot collide in farcical ways. As a last-ditch effort and to raise $32,480 for his child support payments, Rory signs up with a criminal band of misfits to steal election-night payouts to a corrupt Boston mayor (Ron Perlman) running for reelection.

Therapists have made their ways into crime dramas like “The Sopranos,” but “The Instigators” (in theaters Thursday, on Apple TV+ Aug. 9) adds a novel wrinkle by bringing Dr. Rivera along for the ride. When Rory and Cobby (Affleck) go on the run, she tags along as a hostage by choice.

But it takes a little time for the buddy comedy to develop. First, “The Instigators” works in a large percentage of today’s top character actors — among them Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames, Toby Jones and Paul Walter Hauser — all of whom raise the bar in this rudderless but winningly shaggy action comedy.

Liman, the director of “Go,” “The Bourne Identity” and the recent “Road House,” has always had a knack for freewheeling ensembles and for getting the most out of his stars’ charisma. “The Instigators” may be a modern streaming movie but it’s a decidedly old-school kind of caper, stock full of local color and peopled with faces you’re happy to see. It’s a product of Damon and Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity, which produced the film from the script by Casey Affleck and “City on the Hill” creator Chuck MacLean.

For them, the blue-collar Boston terrain of “The Instigators” is about as a cozy as bleacher seat in Fenway Park. “The Instigators” doesn’t live up to other Damon-Afflecks Beantown-set movies (“Good Will Hunting,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town”), and some of their Dunkin’ Donuts-adjacent schtick is at least approaching stale. You could call it a homecoming but it’s more like they never left.

So, yes, this is them very much in their element, but that goes especially true for Affleck, the main reason to see “The Instigators.” His Cobby is a drunk and convict who enlists in the heist out of a lack of other options. It’s an ill-considered scheme by a pair of small-time gangsters (Stuhlbarg, Molina), one of whom runs a bakery as a front. They dispatch a trigger-happy small-time crook (Jack Harlow) to lead the mission, a debacle from the get go. Nothing goes right, not even the expected election result, and out of the melee clatter Cobby and Rory, with a special police investigator (Rhames) in steadfast pursuit.

On the run, their double act — Damon’s earnest deadpan, Affleck’s smart-aleck flippancy — works as well as it ever has, even if the script could use a touch more wit. Affleck makes up for it with his melancholic motormouth routine, one that gets an even better foil once Chau, the talented co-star of “The Whale” and “Showing Up,” is roped into their escape. Though Liman knows how to mix action and comedy as well as anyone, “The Instigators” is better whenever there's less going on.

“The Instigators,” an Apple release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for pervasive language and some violence. Running time: 101 minutes. In Finnish with English subtitles. Three stars out of four.

Sweeping Trump tariffs draw dismay, calls for talks from countries around the globe

2025-04-03 20:17 Last Updated At：20:20

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Sweeping new tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump provoked dismay, threats of countermeasures and urgent calls for talks to find ways to rescind the stiff new import taxes imposed on goods from countries around the globe.

But responses Thursday were measured, highlighting a lack of appetite for an outright trade war with the world's biggest economy.

Trump said Wednesday the import taxes, ranging from 10% to 49%, would do to U.S. trading partners what they have long done to the U.S. He maintains they will draw factories and jobs back to the United States.

“Taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years,” he said. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”

Trump's announcement of a new 20% tariff on the European Union drew a sharp rebuke from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said it was a “major blow to the world economy.”

“The consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe,” von der Leyen said. Groceries, transport and medicines will cost more, she said while visiting Uzbekistan. “And this is hurting, in particular, the most vulnerable citizens.”

Von der Leyen held off, however, from announcing new retaliatory measures and underlined that the EU was ready to negotiate with the U.S.

The makers of Italy's Parmigiano Reggiano cheese say the new tariffs just mean U.S. consumers will pay more, since the protected designation cheese doesn't really compete with U.S. made parmesan. “Americans continued to choose us even when the price went up" after an earlier round of Trump tariffs in 2019, said Nicola Bertinelli, president of the Parmigian Reggiano Consortium.

“Putting tariffs on a product like ours, only increases the price for American consumers, without protecting local producers,’’ he said.

Analysts say there’s little to be gained from an all-out trade war, for the United States or other countries, since higher tariffs can lower growth and raise inflation.

“If Trump really imposes high tariffs, Europe will have to respond, but the paradox is that the EU would be better off doing nothing,” said Matteo Villa, a senior analyst at Italy’s Institute for International Political Studies.

“On the other hand, Trump seems to understand only the language of force, and this indicates the need for a strong and immediate response,” Villa said. “Probably the hope, in Brussels, is that the response will be strong enough to induce Trump to negotiate and, soon, to backtrack.”

Europe's strategy so far has been to limit retaliation to early tariff rounds to just a few politically sensitive goods such as bourbon and motorcycles in an attempt to push the U.S. to the negotiating table, rather than escalate an all-out trade war that could cripple its export-dependent economy.

Economists say the next target could be U.S. tech companies. They fall into the services category, where the U.S. exports more than it imports to Europe and thus would be more exposed to retaliation.

The EU response, likely to be ready by the end of April, includes the option of a tax on U.S. digital giants, said French government spokesperson Sophie Primas. “We’re going to target the services, for example, digital services which are not being taxed for now and could be, the GAFAM for example,” she said on French radio RTL. That's a colloquial acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.

Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the EU won’t be able to limit itself to saying the tariffs are damaging — “we must show that we have strong muscles.”

He added: “But this is with the aim of an agreement, because that is the best for prosperity in the U.S., for prosperity in Europe and for prosperity in the world.”

British Prime Minister Kier Starmer said the U.K. government would react with “cool and calm heads," telling business leaders in London that he hopes to get the tariffs lifted with a trade deal. “Nobody wins in a trade war, that is not in our national interest,” Starmer said.

Japan, America's closest ally in Asia, plans to closely analyze the U.S. tariffs and their impact, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said, while refraining from talk of retaliation.

Financial markets were jolted, with U.S. stock futures down by as much as 3% early Thursday and a 2.8% drop in Tokyo’s benchmark leading losses in Asia. Oil prices sank more than $2 a barrel. Analysts fished for superlatives to a step that disrupts the global trading order and overturns decades of efforts to lower tariffs through trade talks and free trade agreements.

“The magnitude of the rollout — both in scale and speed — wasn’t just aggressive; it was a full-throttle macro disruption,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid called it “radical policy reordering” and said the U.S. now had an average tariff of 25%-30%, the “worst end of expectations” and the highest since the early 20th Century.

“This is a game changer, not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy. Many countries will likely end up in a recession,” Olu Sonola, Fitch Ratings’ head of U.S. Economic Research, said in a report. “You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time.”

Asian countries that are among the biggest exporters to the U.S. pledged to act fast to support automakers and other businesses likely to be affected.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told officials to work with business groups to analyze the impact of the new 25% tariff to “minimize damage,” the trade ministry said.

China's Commerce Ministry said Beijing would “resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests,” without saying exactly what it might do. With earlier rounds of tariffs China reacted by imposing higher duties on U.S. exports of farm products, while limiting exports of minerals used for high-tech industries such as electric vehicles.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would wait to see how Trump’s announcement will affect Mexico, which like Canada was spared for goods already qualified under their free trade agreement with the United States, though previously announced 25% tariffs on auto imports took effect Thursday.

A 29% tariff imposed on the tiny South Pacific outpost of Norfolk Island came as a shock. The Australian territory has a population of around 2,000 people and the economy revolves around tourism.

“To my knowledge, we do not export anything to the United States,” Norfolk Island Administrator George Plant, the Australian government’s representative on the island, told the AP on Thursday. “We don’t charge tariffs on anything. I can’t think of any non-tariff barriers that would be in place either, so we’re scratching our heads here.”

AP journalists around the world contributed to this story.