‘Reptile’: Toronto Review

Dir: Grant Singer. US. 2023. 134mins

Benicio del Toro is effortlessly commanding in Reptile, a crime thriller about a veteran detective whose latest murder case causes him to question everything he knows. This Netflix release has some success exploring the peculiarities of a man whose personal and professional lives are both showing signs of strain, and the film’s lived-in texture gives the proceedings a weary authenticity. Otherwise, though, Grant Singer’s feature directorial debut suffers from an overinflated sense of grandeur and a frustratingly convoluted story, reaching for dramatic heights that it hasn’t earned.

Justin Timberlake is poorly cast

Reptile premieres in Toronto, with Netflix planning a global streaming release on October 6. Del Toro, who co-wrote the screenplay, is joined by a cast that includes Justin Timberlake and Alicia Silverstone, and the film’s murder-mystery trappings might attract at-home audiences, although discouraging reviews won’t help. 

The film begins with real estate agent Will (Timberlake) walking into a house he’s trying to sell, only to discover the slain body of his girlfriend and partner Summer (Matilda Lutz) on the floor, a knife lodged in her torso. Tom (del Toro) is assigned to investigate, trying to ascertain from Will who could have murdered her. The case will send Tom on a search that leads to Summer’s ex-husband Sam (Karl Glusman) and a mysterious recluse named Eli (Michael Carmen Pitt), who shares a past with Will. 

Music video director Singer is as interested in the crime as he is in the life of this cop, observing Tom on the job and at home. Del Toro brings a quiet intensity to every scene — Tom is especially adept at getting suspects to talk — but this detective also exhibits some amusing personality quirks. (For one thing, his nickname is Oklahoma because he dances so well.) Married to the younger Judy (Silverstone), who enjoys picking on her husband, Tom relies on her as a sounding board for the case, making her practically a Watson to his Holmes. Whether weirdly obsessed with a fancy new faucet for his kitchen sink or giving out unsolicited romantic advice to his commitment-phobic partner Dan (Ato Essandoh), he’s a stoic, quizzical figure who’s hard to read, and del Toro lets the character’s contradictions be a playful riddle for the audience to solve.

Unfortunately, few of the supporting performances are similarly impressive. Silverstone exudes just the right amount of seen-it-all attitude as the streetwise Judy, the one person who can push her unflappable husband’s buttons. (Of course, that’s a bit easier considering Tom is worried that she’s having an affair with someone on the construction crew renovating their house.) Playing Tom’s younger partner, Essandoh deftly dramatises Dan’s loss of confidence once he makes a grave mistake in the field.  Eric Bogosian can only do so much as the stereotypical hardened police captain who doesn’t suffer fools, but Timberlake is poorly cast as Will. In theory, the Social Network star should be ideal to play a shallow businessman born into a successful realtor family, his sadness over losing his beloved partner quickly dissipating once other attractive women catch his eye, but he brings little depth to the spineless character — which proves to be a major liability after Tom learns about elements of Will’s background.

Cinematographer Michael Gioulakis and production designer Patrick Sullivan credibly create a cosy small-town environment in which Tom and his fellow cops have lived for years, forming a de facto family which is both inviting and blinkered. Singer captures the chumminess of police officers who seem to operate apart from society — a community Tom loves but whose limitations he begins to push against. About halfway through Reptile, this dogged detective believes he’s apprehended the killer, but soon new evidence makes him wonder if he collared the wrong person. Those revelations, some of which will connect to those closest to him, play out in increasingly laboured fashion. Easy coincidences and unconvincing twists pile one on top of another, all of them meant to teach Tom that much of what he took for granted about his world was a lie. 

Amplified by Yair Elazar Glotman’s moaning score, Singer pitches the final reels at an operatic level meant to suggest we’re watching an epic crime saga. But the growing body count and the ponderous use of on-the-nose music cues mostly just grate — especially, during one pivotal moment, when the director carts out Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, with its solemn opening lines “Mama, take this badge off of me / I can’t use it anymore.” Tom may eventually get his man, but the film loses the plot.