High flying real estate agent Will Grady (Justin Timberlake) discovers his partner brutally murdered in the town of Scarborough, Maine. This brings in grizzled detective Tom Nichols (Benicio Del Toro) to investigate the murder and slowly unravel the conspiracy beneath it all. 

Reptile is an incredibly slow burning crime story that hinges almost entirely on the shoulders of Benicio Del Toro, who is also a co-writer on the film. Your opinion on whether that will make this story gripping or dull is the best indicator of how much you will get from this debut feature from prolific music video director Grant Singer. 

Nichols is a quintessential murder detective in the crime genre. Terse, methodical and unflinching. But here Del Toro also makes him more believable as a human being as well. He loves his wife Judy (Alicia Silverstone) with whom he regularly goes line dancing and discusses his day to day and he is currently obsessing over their kitchen renovation, illicitly taking photographs of a tap he likes from a suspects house and surfing the internet for ideas. But he has a history as well. There are murmurings of possible involvement in corruption at a previous position. Whatever the case he seems laser focused on finding the truth behind the case. 

Elsewhere the film features a number of stock characters that you might see in any crime feature. Rich victims happy to help when it suits them and cops who seem far too wealthy for their roles. It may seem cliche but the film does a good job of keeping you guessing and slowly unraveling the big picture. 

I really enjoyed Reptile. But I know it’s flawed. It definitely leans too far into its slow burn at 134 minutes long. And it doesn’t match up with the likes of David Fincher’s Seven, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners or James Mangold’s Cop Land. But it is a good genre film with a strong lead performance.