Reptile Review

A psychological thriller where the most developed and interesting story is between a man and a faucet.

Reptile is one of the most try hard movies I’ve ever watched.  It tries way too hard to be a psychological thriller as beloved as The Silence of the Lambs, The Devil in a Blue Dress, Memories of Murder, and any of the psychological thrillers of David Fincher.  Reptile director Grant Singer, in his directorial debut, tries so hard to emulate all of them, especially Fincher, but the result is nothing more than an imitation.

              The plot of Reptile, which revolves around a gruff detective (Benicio Del Toro) investigating the murder of a real estate agent, is one of the most uninspiring detective stories i've ever watched.  It’s tempting to just spoil the movie so I can describe just how unoriginal it is, but I won’t.  I’ll just say this: if you have even a basic knowledge of psychological thrillers you can easily predict the story.  I found it so predictable that when the big twist was revealed at the end I found myself saying “No don’t do it!” because I was hoping the movie would not be that predictable.  Reptile lacks self-awareness, as if the basic tropes in the film were introduced by film itself.  To top it all off, the film spoils itself early on and you got a thoroughly dull tale.

              A story can be pushed forward by interesting characters but Reptile doesn’t have any. Benicio Del Toro’s Tom (nicknamed Oklahoma, why he has such a name is asked but ignored) has two personality traits: he’s a cop and he loves his wife Judy (Alicia Silverstone).  Judy’s personality is that she’s tough.  His partner and friends at the precinct are annoying and Michael Pitt plays a red herring who looks like a killer and acts like one.

              As if to compensate for its unoriginality, the film often drenches scenes with music.  Much of it is ominous, dark and intense(as they are labeled in the English subtitles); the problem is this music plays EVERYWHERE.  It gets quite comical when the lead is observing a kitchen faucet or a frisbee hitting the window and its music treats it with seriousness.  The worst case of this is a comical scene when Justin Timberlake’s character is showing the house where his wife's murder happened to potential buyers.  The scene that plays doesn’t add to the story at all but it’s hilarious.  It felt straight out of an an M. Night Shamalyan film. 

              Speaking of inconsequential scenes, this film has a bunch of them.  Hell, even scenes that feel important feel unimportant.  Reptile seems to know all the pieces matter, but the pieces here are cliché and only feel like they were done because its expected of this type of film.  It’s 130 minutes, but the film feels like it could be done in 90.

              Despite the many problems, Reptile isn’t a complete waste.  Del Toro and Silverstone do bring life to their characters.  It’s also pretty to look at, thanks to cinematographer Michael Gioulakis (It Follows, Split).  And credit must be given to Grant Singer for his direction.  The writing is bad, but his direction feels very assured.  Every shot feels meticulously placed.  If nothing else, Singer shows promise as a director, and not all good ones get it right the first time.

The Verdict

Reptile tries way too hard to be great and cool.  Rather than expanding the psychological thriller with ideas of its own, it instead just imitates what’s been done before.  Hopefully Grant Singer’s next project, one like Reptile or something else entirely, knocks it out of the park.

3/10

Reptile is a shallow imitation of better psychological thrillers.