Reptile is one of those slow-burn gritty movies that sometimes works if all the pieces come together correctly. And a lot of times they don’t. It begins with a gruesome murder as a cop dealing with his own demons is brought in to investigate. They think they get the right person in the second act, but as said cop digs deeper, they discover in the final act that it’s worse than what they thought.
Since Benicio Del Toro is credited as a co-writer, it’s obvious an opportunity for him to take the lead as an honest cop Det. Tom Nichols drawn into a web of murder and lies. Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) is brutally murdered in a room of a house she was selling as a realtor. She’s found by her partner (both business and romantic) Will Grady (Justin Timberlake) and while investigated by police, cops let him go despite the objection of Nichols.
Nichols and his partner, Dan Cleary (Ato Essandoh), suspect Summer’s ex-husband, Sam Gifford (Karl Glusman), had something to do with it. Will says that he was wanting to marry Summer, they were just waiting for the divorce to be finalized. Coroner reports indicate Summer was stabbed about three dozen times and semen found inside was that of Sam’s. But an arrest doesn’t do so smoothly, as they never do.
Yet, Tom doesn’t think that Sam is the right man. Of course, he doesn’t. Otherwise the movie would be over. Since it’s about two hours and 15 minutes long with credits, it might have been easy to cut it short. Reptile, directed by Grant Singer (who has a background in music video directing) suffers the same problem most first-time directors have, he doesn’t kill his darlings. Scenes go on and on without much being revealed.
There’s an entire subplot involving Tom’s wife, Judy (Alicia Silverstone), who is being wooed by a building contractor, that could’ve easily been cut out as it adds nothing to the plot. Judy loves Tom and even helps him with the investigation. Why would she want to fool around with some creepy contractor? The scenes where Tom and Judy go square dancing add a little personality to them that you wouldn’t find in a movie like this. Mainly it’s to contrast the high society life Tom’s colleagues want to live in with lakeside houses and fancy dimly lit restaurants that look like they belong in Michael Mann’s Heat.
Also, you would be smart to know that since there is so much emphasis on Tom’s colleagues, there’s going to be a big reveal in the final act. A movie like this is by the numbers neo-noir. The identity of the killer isn’t as important as the motive, which involves a convolution plot that definitely involves dirty cops since they are seen so regularly through the movie. Tom has moved from Philadelphia to the smaller town of Scarborough, which is supposed to be in Maine, even though the movie was filmed in the metro-Atlanta area and you can see the skyline in a few scenes. When he was in Philly, there was a police corruption scandal in which dirty cops threatened his life.
And you don’t have to be smart to know that any cop looking for a change of pace from corruption is going to fall into the same thing. Del Toro does give it his best as the police detective but there’s too many characters that pop up in scenes only to have them come back whenever it’s necessary. Silverstone seems wasted here. However, Eric Bogosian givs a nice performance as a police captain who may or may not be corrupt. But since his character is the uncle of Silverstone’s, you expect some conflict. Yet there’s not much. This is a throwback to the old cop thrillers of the 1990s (Heat, Se7en, Copycat, Bad Lieutenant, etc.) but most of those movies were neatly put together by a director who knew what to leave in and what not.
Singer said the movie’s title is actually about how the characters are introduced as one thing but revealed to be another. So they shed their skin as reptiles do? If you have to explain a movie’s title, you’ve already lost the audience.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 