It’s funny how an old TV catchphrase will just magically pop into your brain. While watching this new comedy action caper I recalled George Peppard as Hannibal Smith, leader of the NBC 80s ratings juggernaut, “The A-Team”. With a big cigar clenched between his pearly whites, he’d grin and exclaim, “I love it when a plan comes together” as the bad guys’ vehicles would flip over (though there had to be a shot of them climbing out of the windows unscathed for the censors). Well, the two main characters of this film might say, “I hate it when a plan falls apart”. And it does spectacularly for these luckless schmoes, actually played by members of the “Ocean’s Crew” (the 2000s reboot). And though they spend most of the story’s runtime trying to escape and survive, the title ironically labels them The Instigators.

In the film’s...