I haven’t yet seen Joe Carnahan, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon‘s The Rip (Netflix, 1.16), but some snarky comment-threader who’s apparently seen it…he/she wrote this morning that it’s okay but no great shakes…a morally conflicted, slightly-better-than-generic programmer.
I’m tapping this out from memory as I can’t find the URL, but the guy basically said that The Rip is “intriguing at first but soon devolves into a generic Netflix thriller, somewhat in the vein of the last Artists Equity boilerplate crime flick, The Instigators.”
The problem with that dismissive remark was that the latter film, produced by Damon and Affleck’s Artists Equity and streamed by Apple, was and is a totally first–rate stand–alone feature.
The comment-threader was wrong, make no mistake, because The Instigators, a downbeat Boston noir comedy, is no boilerplate ho–hummer! On 8.18.24 I called it “a true American original —- The Friends of Eddie Coyle meets deadpan screwball fatalism.”
The only thing that doesn’t work about The Instigators, I said, is the humdrum title. If it was my show I’d have called it I’ve Been Waiting All My Life To Fuck Up Like This — yes, a line stolen from Karel Reisz and Robert Stone‘s Who’ll Stop The Rain? (’78).
Essence of my review: “Despite the downish tone of this heist-gone-wrong ensemble chase thriller, it’s fundamentally a low-key noir comedy…sardonic sarcasm meets ‘fuck our lousy luck and Jesus, have we fucked things up or what?’ meets a kind of loser Keystone Cops mentality.
“It’s basically about the oafish shenanigans of a squad of half-assed, not-smart-enough but not altogether disreputable guys, principally played by Damon (who produced through Artists Equity) and Casey Affleck (who co-wrote the script with Chuck Maclean). Their performances are sweet, sublime, spot-on.
“I was truly delighted by this existential crime sitcom, which is darkly hilarious without ever quite announcing that it’s a hah–hah ‘comedy‘. It’s certainly too smart and cool for the idiots out there who hate the idea of mixing humor and loser-stamped noir. It almost delivers the same kind of tonal balancing act that Pulp Fiction was about.
“And the supporting cast is aces — Hong Chau, Paul Walter Hauser, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow, etc.”