This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
I am beginning to wonder what Netflix really means when a film leaps to the top of their charts. Especially when it’s a film that they bankroll. It seems every time the streaming platform releases a new movie, it magically jumps to the #1 hottest movie on their charts, no matter if the film deserves the honor or not. Reptile is no different.
Benicio Del Toro, Alicia Silverstone and Justin Timberlake star in Reptile, a gritty, dark detective thriller set in the quaint suburb of Scarborough, Maine. Del Toro plays detective Tom Nichols, a hardened veteran of the police force investigating the murder of a real estate agent. Silverstone plays his wife, who is often the calming force in the otherwise anxiety driven picture. Timberlake plays Will Grady, another real estate agent and the boyfriend of the murdered woman.
Along the way of their investigation, Del Toro and his partner Dan Cleary (Ato Essandoh) find a whole host of shady characters and that things aren’t always as they seem.
I think the most disappointing part of watching Reptile is how good the first half is in comparison to the second half. Singer obviously had a really interesting idea for a detective noir thriller but is obviously out of his element in making a feature length film. Singer, who also co-wrote the screenplay and story in addition to directing, is most famous for working on music videos for such musicians as The Weeknd, Skrillex, Lorde and Sam Smith. This was his debut in the feature length department.
To his credit, it’s obvious that he knows how to work with actors, as both Del Toro and Silverstone have a really solid chemistry and charisma that works well on screen. Timberlake does his best to imitate the kind of shady charisma he brought to his previous roles in films like The Social Network, but it doesn’t work as well here.
In addition, the tone of Reptile really works well. There were plenty of moments that properly heightened my anxiety, and the dark, noir feeling atmosphere worked well for this type of film.
The issue really lies in how disjointed the second half of the film is. It’s almost as if they had a half dozen half-baked ideas for how the story should end and tried to combine them all into an amalgamation of uninteresting plot points. Electing to use a twist ending really just cemented the film’s doom.
With how promising the story was at the beginning, it was sad to see how disappointed I was when credits rolled. There were shades of a True Detective type mystery that made it incredibly interesting. But by the second half of Reptile, I was so confused that I had no idea what was even going on. The film had devolved into a series of disconnected scenes that had me asking more questions than were giving me answers.
Final Thoughts
I was excited to watch Reptile. I really was. That’s why I was so disappointed with how the film turned out. I truly believe there is a good film in here somewhere, but Netflix and Grant Singer needed to take the time to truly refine their script before putting on the screen. If you want a solid detective thriller, you can look elsewhere.
