Making a film is such a collaborative process we hesitate to say any individual, even the lead, carries a movie, but that’s exactly what Benicio Del Toro does as a world-weary detective in the seedy and lurid cop-noir “Reptile”: He carries this sometimes convoluted and derivative thriller into three-star territory with an absolutely mesmerizing and authentic performance that conjures up memories of past anti-hero greats such as Bogart and Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Sterling Hayden. It’s authentic, grounded, stunning work.
Even when the material is the stuff of B-movie guilty pleasure.
Director Grant Singer (who co-wrote the script with Del Toro and Benjamin Brewer) makes the move from helming music videos for stars such as Ariana Grande, Skrillex, Lorde and Sam Smith to a feature-length debut that could have benefitted from tighter editing (the running time is 2 hours and 14 minutes). But he has a keen eye for this lurid material, bathing the visuals in ominous and unsettling autumnal tones while making smart choices, e.g., having two of the most violent moments in the film occur offscreen, making them perhaps more impactful and jarring than if they had transpired on camera..
“Reptile” opens with in affluent suburb of Scarborough, Maine, with the mood-setting sounds of an Edie Sands cover of Chip Taylor’s melancholy one-night-stand classic “Angel in the Morning” on the soundtrack, as a young real estate agent named Summer (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) and her boyfriend Will (Justin Timberlake), the heir to a local real estate empire, prep a spacious suburban home for a showing. Not long after, Will discovers Summer’s body in the master bedroom of that same house, stabbed more than 30 times, the knife plunged into her body with such vicious force that it remains jammed in her pelvis.
Enter police detective Tom Nichols (Del Toro), who will lead the investigation into this sensational murder with the help of his eager but green partner Dan (Ato Essandoh). The shifty and smarmy Will is an obvious suspect — he acknowledges his relationship with Summer had its ups and downs — but we’ve got a couple of other contenders as well. There’s Summer’s estranged husband Sam (Karl Glusman), a hollow-eyed creep who makes art incorporating human hair (we see security cam video of this guy surreptitiously snipping someone’s locks on a bus), as well as the disturbed and volatile Eli (Michael Carmen Pitt), who has carried a vendetta against Will’s family ever since they bought up Eli’s family’s farm when the family was financially vulnerable, which led to Eli’s father committing suicide. (Frances Fisher is exquisitely icy as Will’s controlling mother, who runs the real estate empire with ruthless efficiency and treats her jelly-spined, 40-ish son as if he’s 12.)
Poor Summer is nearly forgotten in the morgue as “Reptile” dwells on Tom’s life with his longtime and beloved wife, Judy (a terrific Alicia Silverstone), who has stuck by her husband through some trying times in Philadelphia, when Tom was nearly taken down along with his corrupt partner. (It’s unclear whether Tom DESERVED to go down.) The dynamic between Tom and Judy is warm and passionate, with just the lightest undercurrent of tension fueled by Tom’s jealousy. (He doesn’t trust that hunky contractor who’s renovating the kitchen.)
We also take in the “Copland” type vibe among Tom’s colleagues, including the police chief (Mike Pniewski), a real straight shooter; the captain (Eric Bogosian), a highly respected leader who is also Judy’s uncle, and the veteran cop Wally (Dominick Lombardozzi), who recently started a private security firm and is one of those loud-mouthed, “life of the party” tough guys who is always on the brink of taking the razzing a bit too far. Tom and Judy spend a lot of time with the group and their partners, but we get the feeling Tom still feels like an outsider.
“Reptile” is the kind of movie where the phone is always buzzing in the middle of the night or there’s someone pounding on the door late into the evening, and every time you’re driving on a winding road, the headlights behind you get uncomfortably close. Danger lurks, jump scares abound, and you don’t know who can be trusted. There’s a moment late in the game when Tom wonders if this is Philadelphia all over again, and he says to Judy, “There’s only one thing I love almost as much as I love you, and that’s being a cop, [but] you know what? This thing does not love me.” It’s a killer line, delivered by a world-class actor at the top of his game.
