Who Is the Titular Reptile in Netflix's Thriller, and What Does It Mean? (2024)

Joining the ranks of the Netflix whodunit mysteries is the film Reptile, directed by Grant Singer and starring Benicio Del Toro. Reptile is fashioned in the classic film noir style, closely following the stoic detective Tom Nichols as he investigates the murder of a woman by the name of Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz). The premise of the entire film revolves around who is responsible for her death, but this mystery has an unexpected twist to it, and not everything (or everyone) is as it seems.

As the story unfolds, we discover something much larger at work here than originally expected, and it is not just a simple crime of passion. Reptile tries to challenge its audience's preconceived notions about people and who they really are. Although certain characters seem more capable of committing the crime than others, the true culprits and their reasons are not so obvious. But this leads us to the main question we will be answering: Who is the reptile that the title of the movie refers to, and what exactly does it mean?

Who Does the Title 'Reptile' Refer To?

The question we aim to explore here is a trick question since the answer is that the title is in reference to all the characters. As mentioned previously, the basis of Reptile is that people are not what they seem. Just like a reptile sheds its skin, the characters in this film are ever-changing and shifting.

Shedding that proverbial skin and revealing themselves for who they truly are. It turns out that characters that are dislikable from the get-go end up gaining our sympathy and revealing themselves to be more altruistic than we may have originally perceived. On the other hand, characters we believe to be genuine and decent reveal themselves to be truly ugly in their intentions and actions.

The prime example would be the person responsible for Summer's death. So, spoiler alert if you haven't yet watched Reptile. Will Grady, Summer's boyfriend, appears throughout the film to be grieving his loss, just as we would expect any partner to, but we later find out this is all a front. However, there is more to him than meets the eye, and Nichols discovers the Grady family is running a scam with the help of the police department. It turns out that Will and his mother are involved in Summer's death, although it is unclear if Will murdered her himself or if he had her killed by someone else. Regardless, we find out that Summer was going to inform on the Grady's to the FBI, and her death was an attempt to keep things silent.

A character who might automatically earn our suspicions and strike us as shady is Will's stalker, Eli Phillips. He turns up at the crime scene and later shows up at Will's home and tries to force his way in. Nichols questions him, and at first, we might peg him as unstable and unreliable, but it turns out that there is truth to his claims.

In fact, he declares that it was Will Grady who killed Summer, which makes Nichols take another look at Will as a suspect. Eli also blamed the Grady family for ruining his and his family's lives when they somehow convinced Eli's father to sell their farm to the Grady's. Upon digging into the Grady family, it was Eli who found out about the scam they were running, but he couldn't entrust the police with the information since they were involved.

The metaphor the title implies isn't just about the characters but also applies to the police department in Reptile. As an institution that is supposed to serve and protect the people of their community, the police instead participate in the scam the Grady's orchestrated. Dirty cops plant drugs in the homes and seize them, and then White Fish (the company the Grady's use) swoops in to buy up the homes. This brotherhood among the police department to protect their own and their interests takes priority over doing what is right.

Not all the police are in on the scam, however, including our main character, Detective Nichols. At the beginning of Reptile, Nichols isn't the most likable character, telling tasteless jokes at dinner and getting off with a slap on the wrist after shooting Sam during their investigation.

It turns out that Nichols is better than he seems when he refuses to keep his mouth shut about the police involvement in the scam and instead is determined to take them down and expose what has been going on. In the end, just like a reptile, everyone sheds their outer layer and exposes themselves for who they truly are, and over the course of Reptile, our perspective shifts as we realize that everything is not as it seems at first glance and there is no such thing as black and white.

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