Grant Singer’s latest neo-noir crime film, Reptile, landed on Netflix earlier this month. The movie, starring Academy Award-winner Benicio del Toro, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Timberlake, and Eric Bogosian tells the story of a detective trying to uncover the culprit of a horrid crime that took place out in the sticks, the victim, a woman by the name of Summer Elswick played by Matilda Lutz was found dead and her surviving boyfriend, played by Timberlake seems traumatized about it.
It is up to Del Toro’s character, Tom Nichols to uncover what went down. He first suspects of the boyfriend, but still, as we’ll see in this movie’s climactic finale, the facts that Nichols must uncover are way more complex than the smoking gun. In a cerebral twist of events, the movie’s conclusion leaves you wondering what is the meaning of it all.
And today, I plan on giving you what I consider my interpretation of this neo-noir climactic finale. So, if you haven’t seen it yet. I suggest you go to Netflix, and you do, because along the way of this article, I will be giving out spoilers for context and for constructing what I consider is my interpretation of the movie’s finale.
What Is Reptile’s Plot?
The movie kicks off by presenting us with Summer Elswick and Will Grady, two real estate agents with a rocky relationship. But when one night, Will Grady finds out that his girlfriend is dead at an open house they’re trying to sell, things get primed for what is going to be a very cerebral neo-noir thriller.
Summer is lying dead with a bunch of stab wounds and a knife stuck in her groin. Captain Robert Allen is called to the scene, along with veteran murder detective Tom Nichols, who leads the murder case with Dan Cleary. Initially, they ask Will, who’s profoundly shocked by this, but the moment they start questioning him to reconstruct the events, Tom seems pretty skeptical of Will, who appears to be the prime suspect of this murder.
Following that, forensics discovered that Summer’s body showed signs of recent intercourse prior to her death, with semen on her person. They also discover an old Calcimine paint imprint on her palm, strands of blonde hair, and CCTV footage of a Chrysler Imperial car. Summer also has a husband, Sam Gifford, from whom she is separated but not divorced. Will provides the information, and he also clarifies that the repeated lack of commissions on Summer’s estate sales is merely a tax avoidance strategy.
As a result, while it may appear that Summer did not make much money on her numerous houses, she actually has $70,000 to her name on paper. Meanwhile, an unidentified man tries to cause problems for Will and his mother, Camille. As a result, at Summer’s funeral, Will tells the detective about the stranger Eli Phillips’ lifelong grudge against the Gradys. When Tom investigates, he discovers that Eli paid a visit to Whitcomb on the night of Summer’s murder and claims to have done so to bring Will down, claiming that he’s a crook and a murderer.
We then find out that Summer was still going out with her husband, Sam, before her death. Renee withheld the information, however, because her ex was in business with Sam, dealing heroin and cocaine, and didn’t want her talking to the cops about his business partner. The DNA results from Summer’s corpse arrive just in time, confirming the semen to be Sam’s and further incriminating him.
The cops go to Sam’s Home, and officers Cleary and Nichols enter the premises. They want to keep things cool, but when Sam realizes they’re going to arrest him, he overpowers Cleary, takes his gun, and flees the scene, guns blazing. So, Tom Nichols takes out his gun and chases him. There’s an exchange of fire and lost between bullets, Sam ends up dead.
When the cops search Sam’s home, they find a large stash of smack, effectively telling us that it was Sam who did kill Summer, and he did so to cover his marks. The fallout ends up with Tom Nichols on track to receive a condecoration for saving Cleary’s life. But the veteran murder detective can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. As a result, Tom continues to investigate the case with Allen’s approval, but the leads are dead. That is, until their paths cross again, and his entire perspective on the case changes.
Reptile Ending Explained: Who Killed Summer Elswick?
By now, you should be able to connect the dots, but in case you haven’t, here’s how it goes. Summer Elswick’s murder is seemingly solved, but when Tom Nichols feels uneasy about that conclusion, he keeps on digging.
When Eli Phillips comes back, things take a weird turn on their own because it brings to Nichols new information.
