Reptile

There was a moment early on in Reptile where Benicio Del Toro’s homicide detective scolds a uniform police officer. 

“When you walk through this crime scene. 12 members of the jury walk with you.” 

Lines like that and the mood of most of Reptile struck me as a film that was made by someone who had either done a homicide investigation or at least had done their research on how these things work. 

That feeling lasts even as the movie hits several cop story cliches on the way to its mostly predictable conclusions. 

Reptile was Directed by Grant Singer with credited writing by Singer, Benjamin Brewer and star Benicio Del Toro. Both visually and in the way the story develops suggests everyone watched an Ozark marathon before filming began.

That’s snarky I admit but it’s not a bad thing. Del Toro’s electric screen presence keeps the proceedings intriguing and Justin Timberlake is perfectly cast as a sleezy real estate agent / possible killer.

Eric Bogosian has fun playing the paternal possibly evil cop/uncle or copuncle and Dominick Lombardozzi gets another role where he plays a friend turned menacing presence in the story.

The movie’s secret weapon is Alicia Silverstone playing the wife of Del Toro’s homicide detective. She gets to have some fun sort of helping him with the investigation and there is the obligatory scene that places her in danger.

I immediately wanted her to be Del Toro’s partner instead of his wife because their natural chemistry could have carried the movie.

Unfortunately, the flick suffers from a byzantine plot and the elements of a conspiracy that it never quite fully explains. Nor does it make the audience care about who did what to whom.

Making those kind of crime tropes interesting is always a tough sell and this movie never gets there. There is a reason that there was only one good season of True Detective and everyone gave up on that show when the season 1 finale couldn’t live up to the mystery hype.

Ultimately, Reptile doesn’t quite rise to the B tier cop movie status of flicks like Copland or Narc but it is a fine example of the genre. While it doesn’t reach super highs it doesn’t fall flat either.

And I promise you I am not joking with this. Netflix should greenlight a sequel immediately and send Del Toro’s character into private investigations with his wife/partner Silverstone. 

They’re cute, they’re haunted by a shared murder solving past and they want to help.