Category:

Review

Duration: 6:45

33 views

3

Netflix's "Reptile" (2023) directed by Grant Singer was a boring waste of time. It's a thriller that never had me hooked once and it felt like it was a film from 20 years ago.

Detective Tom Nichols (Benicio Del Toro) investigates a case about a woman who was murdered in her own home. He doesn't have much to go off of but he starts with the obvious prime suspect, the spouse, Will Grady (Justin Timberlake). Tom shoots and kills a potential suspect in self defense but he doesn't feel good about it and keeps searching for answers on the case. Tom uncovers a real estate scam involving people he personally knows which puts him in a tricky situation.

Reptile is absolute bore to sit through. One of the most important things about any thriller is to feature some sort of lure / hook to capture my interest. If I wasn't watching this for the sake of reviewing it I would have turned it off after 25 minutes personally. The acting is good but there are so many characters and names to keep track of. The investigation itself is super bland and I would prefer to watch almost any other investigate thriller over this one if I had to again.

The entire film felt phoned in and like it was someone's after thought. Benicio Del Toro is taking his role so seriously that it almost sucks the life out of the film entirely. Eventually the film does attempt to make it worth your while with it's climactic finish but I've seen far superior climactic endings in this genre than this one, and I already felt like it robbed me of my time at that point. I give even the worst films my full attention when reviewing them, but full disclosure: I couldn't be bothered to sit there and watch only this for it's entire painful duration; and instead I opted to leave it on as background noise to listen to as I assembled a LEGO James Bond Aston Martin DB5 (unrelated but true).

#rainynights #movies #reptile