The Instigators follows two thieves who are forced to stick together after a robbery goes wrong. The film is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Rory, an ex-Marine mechanic, confesses to his psychiatrist, Dr. Donna Rivera, that he is contemplating suicide. He is in debt and cannot bring himself to face his son until he settles it.
Rory is contacted for a job by a man named Scalvo, who works for a crime boss, Mr. Besegai. When Rory goes to meet them, he is introduced to Cobby, an ex-convict.
Besegai wants them to rob the city’s mayor, Miccelli, who is expected to get reelected in the runoffs and host a party on election night.
The party will bring in a lot of cash, which Rory and Cobby will be stealing with Scalvo. All three of them will get 10% of the cash they steal.
However, Rory strikes a different deal with Besegai: regardless of how much they steal, Besegai must pay him $32,480, the amount he needs to repay his debts.
Rory and Cobby agree to steal from the mayor and start preparing with Scalvo, unaware that Scalvo has been asked to kill them after the job is done.
Cobby and Rory are very different from each other. While Cobby never stops talking, Rory, who is clueless and harmless most of the time, does not smile or talk unless necessary.
On election night, Rory, Cobby, and Scalvo infiltrate the hotel where Miccelli’s party is going to be held, but everything goes awry from the start.
Miccelli unexpectedly loses to his opponent, Choi. There are more employees in the kitchen than anticipated, and the safe contains very little money.
While escaping with whatever little cash they steal, Rory, Cobby, and Scalvo run into the mayor and his team. Scalvo decides to rob them at gunpoint.
This results in a gunfight, which kills the police commissioner and Scalvo. Cobby also gets shot but still helps Rory escape with the stolen items.
The two of them then hide in the beach house of Mr. Kelly, the man whose bar Cobby frequents. Rory and Cobby now possess Miccelli’s bracelet.
The bracelet has the code of Miccelli’s safe engraved on it. Miccelli refuses to concede until he retrieves all the money stored in his office safe.
He sends Frank Toomey, a feared police detective, to retrieve his bracelet. Meanwhile, Besegai asks his subordinate, Dechico, to get Rory and Cobby killed before they are captured.
Rory contacts Dechico to update him on their situation and ask for help, leading to Dechico sending a goon named Booch to kill them.
While they wait for help, Cobby tells Rory how he took the blame for a crime his brother committed and went to jail. His brother later overdosed.
Similarly, Rory shares his story with Cobby, who advises Rory to meet his son, believing that his son would be happy to see him despite his financial troubles.
When Booch arrives, his search for the bracelet makes Cobby realize its importance. Rory and Cobby take the bracelet after getting the better of Booch.
Rory then takes Cobby to Dr. Rivera and asks her to treat his gunshot wound. He promises to turn himself in once he has got his $32,480.
Dr. Rivera agrees to treat Cobby only if Rory claims he took her hostage, as treating him willingly would mean breaking the law by aiding fugitives.
Dr. Rivera ends up calling the police after treating Cobby. She wants Rory to turn himself in, but Rory refuses and leaves her house with Cobby. She decides to join them to ensure that Rory does not kill himself.
The three of them then break into Mr. Kelly’s bar, where Toomey finally finds them. He makes them give up the bracelet and takes Dr. Rivera to safety.
However, the police officers waiting outside the bar never get the chance to arrest Rory and Cobby, as there is an explosion at the bar, allowing Rory and Cobby to escape yet again.
Ending explained:
Cobby and Rory’s new objective
Now that Cobby and Rory are wanted criminals with nowhere to go, they deliberate their next move. While Cobby wants to run away to Canada, Rory wants to rob a bank.
They disagree with each other’s ideas but eventually find an objective that suits them both—robbing Miccelli, who has still not conceded.
Cobby figured out that the numbers on the bracelet were the code for Miccelli’s safe and memorized them before handing the bracelet over to Toomey.
He believes that years of kickbacks and bribes have filled Miccelli’s safe with a lot of illegal cash. Miccelli is refusing to vacate his office for Choi because the money remains in the safe.
The two of them steal uniforms from the fire department and start a fire at city hall to blend in with the other firefighters and enter the building undetected.
Miccelli gets his bracelet back, but he is unable to take his money out of the safe when the fire alarms go off and he is forced to evacuate the building.
A Hostage situation leads to a hopeful resolution
Cobby and Rory do not know much about how firefighters function, so it does not take long for another firefighter to realize that they are imposters.
The pair lock themselves in Miccelli’s office and prevent the firefighter from breaking down the door by taking Miccelli’s lawyer, Alan, hostage.
Cobby and Rory have grown close during their misadventures. When Miccelli asks snipers to shoot at them through the windows, Cobby risks his life to save Rory.
Cobby and Rory open the safe and find it full of cash. At the same time, Dr. Rivera is sent inside the building to negotiate with them to free the hostage.
Once inside, Dr. Rivera makes Rory talk about his feelings, and he confesses that he no longer wants to die, much to her relief and happiness.
Rory decides to turn himself in, but Dr. Rivera realizes that he will get killed if he does that, so she asks Rory and Cobby to run away.
They take some money from the safe and throw the rest from the window. The cash in the safe causes chaos and confusion among the crowd on the street, allowing Rory and Cobby to escape.
Rory and Cobby’s surprising release
Rory is now willing to go to Canada with Cobby, but their plans are foiled by Toomey, who finds and arrests them after their escape.
Before they are arrested, Rory and Cobby give him two hard drives that have evidence of all the bribes Miccelli received in the past twenty years.
The two hard drives have information on accounts that contain a hundred million untraceable dollars. If Rory and Cobby are prosecuted, the drives will be entered into evidence by their lawyers.
The new mayor, Choi, decides not to prosecute them to hide the information about those accounts and to keep that money for himself, dropping all the charges against Rory and Cobby.
Although Rory failed to get the money he needed, he remembers Cobby’s advice and goes to meet his son. He is no longer ashamed to face him.
Dr. Rivera had earlier come to the conclusion that Cobby feels alone and abandoned by everyone. She had advised him to learn to be a friend in order to get a friend.
After getting released from prison, Cobby goes to meet Dr. Rivera, marking the beginning of their friendship.
Meanwhile, Besegai and Dechico are found dead after attempting to cross the border to Canada on foot without proper boots.
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