Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play complete strangers thrown into their first heist in the new action comedy “ ." The robbery of a corrupt politician goes very wrong, and their characters are left on the run in Boston (with Damon’s character’s therapist, played by , in tow). The film is written by Affleck and Chuck MacLean and directed by .
It is a throwback to the kind of movies that people say don’t get made anymore, like “Midnight Run,” with a stacked cast of great character actors (Alfred Molina, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ron Perlman, Toby Jones, Ving Rhames and so on). And it's also completely modern: It’s made by a streaming company, AppleTV+ (playing in select theaters now and streaming Friday) with Damon and Ben Affleck’s . Damon, Affleck and Chau spoke to The Associated Press about the film, shared histories and old jokes.
A fair amount of “gentle ribbing,” as Chau called it, ensued. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity. CHAU: It felt very family barbeque, and I was just hoping I could bring a yummy dish.
I love being able to see the back and forth between these two and all of the gentle ribbing that went on. AFFLECK: I wasn’t expecting that anyone was just going to send me their great comedy and ask me to come do it. So I thought I’d better come up with one of my own.
(Chuck) had a really good idea and some great characters in it. He didn’t really want to work on it anymore, and so he said, why don’t you take it and see what you can d.