Doug Liman directs; Matt Damon and Casey Affleck star in a thoroughly entertaining buddy comedy caper. Our review of The Instigators:

At its core, The Instigators is about two complete idiots. Fortunately, the filmmakers that dreamed them up are much smarter, as proven by two introductory scenes that are as precisely engineered as a Swiss watch.

In the first, we meet Matt Damon’s Rory, a tired, worn-down military veteran who misses his son and, in his own mumbling way, admits the depths of his depression to his shrink Dr Rivera, played with clear-eyed intelligence by Hong Chau. Cut to Casey Affleck’s Cobby, an alcoholic ex-con who’s so morally bankrupt that he uses his own young son to perform his breathalyser tests for him.

One scene after that, and we’re introduced to the grand scheme that will shape the rest of the movie: local hoodlum and...