Producers: Logan Lerman and Jonathan Schwartz   Director: Austin Peters   Screenplay: Sam Freilich, Austin Peters and Deering Regan  Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Nathan Fillion, Erik Palladino, John Billingsley, Jason Manuel Olazábal and Jesse Saler   Distributor: IFC Films

Grade: C

Austin Peters’ satirical thriller about skullduggery within the California skin care community is obviously inspired by an actual case—that of Dawn DaLuise, the aesthetician-owner of a shop called Skin Refinery, who was accused of plotting the murder of rival Gabriel Suarez, owner-operator of Smooth Cheeks, and spent nearly a year in jail before being acquitted at trial. Though it doesn’t explicitly acknowledge the debt, it’s even set in 2013, about the time of the actual events.   (After her exoneration DaLuise, one might note. opened a new place called Killer Facials.)

It’s a pretty juicy tale (the case implicated Nick Prugo, who’d been a member of the notorious teen Bling Ring), but one handled with less than optimal finesse by Peters and his co-writers Sam Freilich and Deering Regan. “Skincare” tries to keep us guessing while lobbing potshots at the vanity-based industry, but does neither very well. 

Elizabeth Banks is extravagantly over-the-top as Hope Goldman, the DaLuise stand-in, whose boutique beauty shop caters to the rich and famous in Los Angeles.  She’s also about to launch her own expensive, custom-made line of cosmetics, which she’s planning to promote via an interview on a local morning talk show hosted by a stilted fellow named Brett (Nathan Fillion). 

Hope is an enthusiastic entrepreneur but not, it appears, an especially astute one from a practical perspective.  She’s behind on her rent, constantly putting off her landlord Jeff (John Billingsley), and could lose her lease on the shop’s swanky location.  And while always putting on a perky, upbeat face, she’s extremely upset when a competitor, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a new shop, Shimmer Skin, just across the street from hers.  Her discomfort increases when Brett bumps her taped launch interview for one featuring Vergara, who boasts that his anti-aging treatments are based on discoveries by NASA. She also has to do some fast thinking to deflect Brett when the married man promises to broadcast the interview later in return for some late-night consideration.  He’s only the first man to look on the attractive, increasingly desperate Hope as a potential conquest.

But worse is to come.  Arriving at work one morning, Hope’s informed by her secretary/bookkeeper Marine (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) that an email’s been sent to all her clients in which she not only confesses to her financial woes but indicates that she’s having an emotional breakdown.  Then the tires on her care are slashed, and a burly ruffian (Jesse Saler) shows up at the shop in response to a message that Hope’s available to provide sexual services.  She’s certain that Angel’s behind it all, but gets no satisfaction by confronting him, or by contacting a police detective (Jason Manuel Olazábal) for help. 

So Hope starts doing some stalking of her own, especially after her home is broken into, and tries to add a gun to her defensive arsenal of mace. She also gets offers of assistance from a couple of men.  Once is Armen (Erik Palladino), the mechanic who helps with the tires and shows some interest in dating her.  The other is Jordan (Lewis Pullman), an old acquaintance who’s now a self-styled life coach; he effectively suggests becoming her personal protector.  But things continue to deteriorate, until everything unravels and the truth of the matter is revealed, not to Hope’s advantage. 

“Skincare” might have been fashioned as a statement about the difficulties female entrepreneurs face in struggling to succeed, or as a scathing commentary on the upper-end cosmetics business,. But it’s content to skirt any deeper issues in favor of an obvious portrait of a driven but rather scatterbrained young woman and a whodunit that, in the end, opts for a lazy resolution.  What might have been a sharp satire instead emerges as a disappointingly skin-deep comedy of errors with a downbeat close.

Nevertheless one has to recognize the full-throated effort Banks puts into the piece—she’s on the screen virtually non-stop, and holds it expertly even as the plot goes haywire, helped by Christopher Ripley’s cinematography, which suggests a world closing in on her as some even suspect she might have engineered everything as a publicity stunt, and Fatima Al Quadiri’s score, which morphs from the bubbly to something more discordant.  And while no one else in the cast has an opportunity to make much of an impression, despite a limited budget the picture enjoys some creamy visual panache as a result of Liz Toonkel’s production design and Angelina Vitto’s costumes.  But Laura Zemoel’s editing can’t always successfully cope with the tonal shifts.

In the end “Skincare” is a film with potential, but unfortunately fails to realize it.                  

Producers: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jeff Robinov, Kevin Walsh, John Graham and Alison Winter   Director: Doug Liman   Screenplay: Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck   Cast: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Toby Jones, Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman, Toby Onwumere, Ronnie Cho and André De Shields   Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios/Prime Video

Grade: C

Doug Liman’s action dramedy has a lot going for it, in addition to the director’s proven way with such material: a couple of stars with individual charisma and good mutual spark, a strong supporting cast, and a heist script with potential to mix local Boston color with exciting set-pieces and cunning twists.  The real mystery, unfortunately, turns out to be not so much what goes wrong for the mismatched protagonists of “The Instigators” as why the movie as a whole collapses into tiresome mediocrity despite all the promising ingredients.

The focal characters are Rory (Matt Damon) and Cobby (Casey Affleck, who co-wrote the script with Chuck MacLean).  Rory’s a straight-arrow vet who’s deeply in debt for child support and, he suggests to his social worker/therapist Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), suicidal over his inability to have contact with his son until the $32,000 is paid.  Cobby’s an alcoholic ex-con with criminal connections.

One of those is Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg), an intense small-time boss who hides behind a legal front—a bakery he runs with his chubby underling Richie (Alfred Molina).  Besegai has a plan to rob corrupt Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman) of the loot he collects in cash “contributions” from wealthy favor-seekers at his campaign party on election night, when he’s expected to prevail once again.  Unfortunately Besegai’s crew has fallen apart, and he has to rebuild it quickly.  So he hires Rory and Cobby to pull of the heist, taking their orders from hot-tempered Scalvo (Jack Harlow).

Of course things go wrong.  Not only does Miccelli lose, but by the time the three robbers arrive at the boat when his party is being held, the cash has already been sent ashore.  Scalvo goes berserk and robs the mayor and his entourage of their valuables, including a silver bracelet Miccelli begs to keep, claiming it has sentimental value (although, as events will prove, its value to him depends more on greed than sentiment).  Worse, Scalvo kills a cop and is himself killed, Cobby is wounded, and he and Rory escape empty-handed and chased by the cops, Besegai’s stooge Booch (Paul Walter Hauser—after all, he wants his role in the mess kept quiet) and Miccelli’s enforcers (including Ving Rhames’ stoic, implacable Frank Toomey, who’s directed to get that bracelet back).  Cobby’s wound prompts Rory to ask Rivera for help, and worried that her patient might kill himself, she reluctantly becomes their pseudo-hostage, making their efforts to elude their pursuers even more complicated.

It’s hard to pinpoint why “The Instigators,” despite the constant twists and turns the script provides, ends up such a trifling exercise.  But the problems pile up.  Damon and Affleck have good rapport, but though their banter is sometimes amusing (Cobby’s frustration when Rory keeps asking Besegai questions as he lays out the plan, and then makes a point of writing down the answers, makes for an early highlight, and there are other clever back-and-forths along the way), it’s not consistently funny enough.  The explanations behind the choices the guys make to save themselves aren’t totally implausible, but they’re not particularly inventive.  One can understand why it was thought necessary to add a bit of romance to the equation, but Cobby’s flirting with Rivera (a pleasant but bland Chau) is just an offhand afterthought going nowhere.  Except for Stuhlbarg, who livens up his few scenes with manic energy, the bad guys are a pretty dull lot: Molina and Toby Jones (as the mayor’s financial advisor) are pretty much wasted, Rhames coasts along on his grim façade, and Perlman just bellows his way through the proceedings.  Naming one character John Wayne (Toby Onwumere) doesn’t help.

And while Liman and his behind-the-camera cohorts (including production designer Greg Berry, cinematographer Henry Braham and editors Saar Klein, William Goldenberg and Tatiana S. Riegel) stage competent action pieces—most notably a couple of vehicle chases and two building explosions—the result comes across as efficient rather than inspired, failing to elicit the adrenaline rush the director once was so capable of achieving.  (The visuals are also too dark and washed-out for comfort.)  Even Christophe Beck’s score seems to be going through the motions, and the decision to set wild rides through the city’s streets to Petula Clark’s musty “Downtown” reeks of flaccid nostalgia.

“The Instigators” isn’t awful, but it reminds you of many other movies, including ones made by Damon, Affleck and Liman, that were far more exciting and memorable.  If you decide to watch it, though, you might as well stick through the credits to find out what happens in the north to the real instigators behind this robbery-gone-south.