Attribution: Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash
Less is More: Movie Review of Reptile
By Geoff Carter
There have been a spate of movie mysteries making the rounds of theaters and streaming TV during the past year or so. Kenneth Branagh’s remakes of the Agatha Christie classics Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and A Haunting in Venice (based on Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party) have been at the forefront of this trend. The tongue-in-cheek mysteries Knives Out and the subsequent Glass Onion films were also—despite their ironic tone—examples of classic whodunit plots.
All the above movies boasted star-studded casts. Along with Branagh as famed detective Hercule Poirot (sporting probably the most lavish and elaborate of the detective’s famed moustaches), the film featured Michelle Pfeiffer, Derek Jacobi, Johnny Depp, Willem Defoe, Olivia Colman, Daisy Ridley, and no less than Dame Judy Dench. The opulence of this star-studded cast is matched—unfortunately—with action-packed sequences, including gunplay, that probably caused poor Ms. Christie to spin in her grave.
These tendencies to jazz up a good mystery plot with gratuitous violence and truckloads of star power are not new. The 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express boasted a cast that included Albert Finney, Richard Widmark, Martin Balsam, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, and others, but there was no gunplay. It was a very civilized murder investigation.
One of the most recent of these murder mysteries has been Reptile, released on Netflix. The movie follows homicide detective Tom Nichols (Benicio del Toro) and his partner Dan Cleary (Ato Essandoh) as they investigate the brutal murder of real estate agent Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) in a small Maine town. Will Grady (Justin Timberlake), Summer’s live-in boyfriend, is questioned but subsequently released. Eli Phillips (Michael Carmen Pitt), who bears a grudge against Will and his real estate company for forcing the sale of his family farm. Summer’s husband (Sam Gifford) also comes under suspicion.
The plot is interspersed with a number of scenes of Nichols, Cleary, and other investigator in the local police department playing cards, partying, and square dancing. It seems to be a very tight crew. Nichols’ wife, Judy (Alicia Silverstone) is also introduced as a spunky and smart woman with (maybe) a hidden agenda of her own.
As the investigation unfolds, Gifford, Pitt, and Grady all come under varying degrees of suspicion. Gifford’s DNA is found at the scene, and during an arrest attempt, he is shot and killed. Later, testimony from a friend of Summer’s maintains that she and her husband had been meeting for clandestine sex in open houses. Nichols is not convinced that Gifford is the killer and continues pursuing the trail of evidence which leads to possible money laundering, police corruption, and fraud. Needless to say, Nichols picks his way through the obfuscations, lies, and misdirections to finally uncover the truth.
The basic plot itself is solid, but not unlike the bells and whistles tacked onto Branagh’s Agatha Christie films and even the Knives Out films (see the final scene of Glass Onion), the glitter tends to dominate the substance. A good mystery is a balancing act. The writer—or director—has to reveal just enough to keep the reader engaged and active in the investigative process while maintaining credulity and authenticity. Agatha Christie was a master at this. Even her more run-of-the-mill murders had the perfectly calibrated twists leading to the solution. They were clever but not condescending.
My main complaint about some of these modern murder mysteries is their insincerity. While red herrings are part and parcel of a classic mystery, it seems as if some of the newer fare, like Reptile, is attempting to dupe the viewer. Half the fun of watching a mystery is figuring out who the culprit is. When peripheral characters such as Will Grady’s mother Camille (Frances Fisher) are unnecessarily depicted in suspicious circumstances, viewers become befuddled. Why are we shown the cut wound on Tom Nichols’ hand right after the murder? It raises the question of his involvement—but why?
In Reptile, if we pare down the possible affair between Judy and the contractor, Nichols’ checkered past with the Philadelphia police department, the weird snake-like tattoo on Summer’s back, the shed snakeskin she finds in an open house, and an odd couple who come to Will Grady’s open house for an impromptu photo session at the murder scene, we have a very nice tight plotline.
Some of the great film mysteries, like Rear Window, Se7en, or The Usual Suspects will spend time developing characters, setting, or focusing on police procedure, but they do not engage in trying to dazzle, mislead, or surprise the viewer. A good mystery doesn’t need cheap thrills. We didn’t need to see Jimmy Stewart having a shootout with Raymond Burr in Rear Window because it would have distracted from the suspense. But this and deliberate misdirections, probably meant to interest the viewer, simply serve to frustrate them.
There are a lot of good things about Reptile. The acting is excellent. As Nichols, Benicio del Toro brings a sort of amiable deliberateness to the part, like a papa bear sniffing out a honeycomb. Alicia Silverstone has a sort of funky charm as Mrs. Nichols. She is smart, intuitive, and gutsy, all qualities that are blended seamlessly into her performance.
The beginning of the film is extremely engaging. From the point where we are introduced to Summer and Will to the discovery of the murder and the initial investigation culminating in the autopsy, the audience is completely engrossed. Director Grant Singer sets the stage extremely well. The mood is almost reminiscent of some recent Nordic Noir pieces or the first season of True Detective. Long shots of the empty house, a long shot of the corpse sprawled on a white rug in an empty bedroom, and the traveling shots of cars traveling in isolated rural areas lend a sense of ominous foreboding to the mood.
Unfortunately, this mood is broken as the script engages in sidebars from the main action of the investigation and tends to blow smoke into the eyes of the viewer. Even the meaning of the film’s title is obscure. Who or what is the reptile? When Summer finds a shed snakeskin in one of the houses, the nature of its significance is unknown—and remains so. The idea of peeling away layers, like a snake’s skin, to reveal the truth, is only hinted at. The same is true of the last sequence in which Judy bathes Tom’s hand in a paraffin bath. Its significance is also obscure.
All in all, Reptile is a disappointment. It had a promising start, great acting, and a plausible storyline. But all this was obscured by the bells and whistles of overwriting and overproduction. It’s sort of like putting a fig leaf on the statue of David; it’s unnecessary, distracting, and detracts from the beauty of the original.
Less, after all, is more.