Reptile (2023) was released to Netflix this past September and is directed by Grant Singer. It stars Benicio Del Toro, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone, Eric Bogosian, Domenick Lombardozzi, and Michael Pitt. The plot revolves around an experienced homicide detective (Del Toro) who is investigating the murder of a successful real estate agent’s wife. What the detective soon discovers is that the case is much more complex than it initially appears. This leads him down a rabbit hole of conspiracies and secrets that begin to threaten the domestic sanctity of both himself and his loving wife. Reptile is a throwback to detective procedurals that we saw a lot of in the 90’s. As that kind of nostalgic throwback, the film delivers the goods in spades. The thing is, the film doesn’t really feel all that new. Even when it subverts genre tropes, there’s still an overwhelming feeling of familiarity. The film is also very messy in terms of elements such as theme, pacing, and character. Although, these elements are mostly balanced out by Benico’s strong lead performance. 

What Benico does here is give us an admittedly standard detective character, but distinguishes him by giving the character small quirks that cause him to feel unique within the genre. The character wants to do his job, do it well, and then live his personal life in peace. He’s seemingly exhausted by the extra drama the job inherently puts him through. He is likewise shown to be very capable at performing his duties to the highest extent, almost clinical in a sense. This is then juxtaposed by the fact he wants to ignore the job entirely when he’s not on the clock. There’s one funny edit where we cut from a crime scene to Benicio looking at something on his computer as intense music is playing. We assume he’s doing research on the crime, but it turns out that he’s just shopping for the same kind of faucet he saw in the house of the murder victim. This would maybe make the character seem unlikeable but it speaks more to the fact of how good this guy is at implementing a work-life balance. If he was later shown to be incompetent at his job, then the scene would have achieved something different. Also, just visually, the character is unique from most hardened detective characters. He wears a single earring, and although I have no issues with this personally (I don’t know why anyone would), it was just the first time I saw this type of character break free from the “conservative white man cop” look we get 99% of the time. 

I hadn’t seen Alicia Silverstone in anything in quite awhile, but she fits into her role here perfectly. She plays the standard detective’s wife character but is able to bring an element of strength. I really bought her relationship with Benicio’s character and it really helped to establish those all-important stakes. 

Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. He has some great expressional acting the first two-thirds of the film, but when it comes time to put pedal to the metal, he comes off as forced. He just doesn’t do “intimidating” very well. 

The rest of the cast is great in terms of acting, but they don’t play characters that are entirely fleshed out. There are a lot of characters with a lot of different motivations, so naturally a lot of these get left on the cutting room floor. It’s fine to not flesh out certain characters, but their amount of nuance should equal their importance to the plot. I don’t feel as if that balance features in Reptile. Seemingly important characters disappear entirely in the third act while small characters become big players. It makes the early portions seem like a somewhat waste of time. That being said, the plot is also extremely convoluted in order to arrive at a somewhat basic and predictable climax. The film also treats itself as if this is some thematically meaningful and message-filled story. Although I had fun with this, I never experienced anything that was too emotionally deep or intensely thematic. It kind of makes you roll your eyes. If your story is one that should be taken at face-value, treat it that way. The audience can immediately spot when there are attempts to add a faux sense of grandeur.

The film is shot well enough and everything is really balanced in terms of tone. I never felt like any comedy or drama was out of place here. The film also holds some really good tension throughout the third act, really pulling you through even if you kind of know where everything is headed. 

Overall, Reptile is exactly the kind of movie you’re expecting when going into it. It’s formulaic in a way that is both comforting and slightly disappointing. In other words, I would say this is a good film if you love murder mystery police procedurals or television shows such as CSI or Criminal Minds. If you’re looking for something a bit more elevated, you might be disappointed. The style here is great, but the structure needed a lot of work. B-