Reptile (2023) review

Detective Tom Nichols (Benicio del Toro), who previously worked in Philly before relocating to Maine, investigates the fatal stabbing of real estate agent Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) and talks to several suspects, including her boyfriend and business partner Will Grady (Justin Timberlake), her estranged husband Sam Gifford (Karl Glusman), her friend Renee (Sky Ferreira) and unstable local Eli Phillips (Michael Carmen Pitt) ... and then realizes it goes a lot deeper.  By now, the police procedural is a pretty commonplace genre but this does absolutely nothing creative with it (there's even an egregious "it was all a dream" moment) - filmmaker (and co-screenwriter) Singer, in his feature-length debut, has spent his career mostly directing music videos (which might explain why so many scenes are a little choppy) but doesn't seem to have much of an intellectual angle on the story, settling on having it be about corruption in the force.  When a TV program like Dateline makes true crime actually compelling - whereas this does not - a re-write or four was probably in order.  I'm still not sure what the title's referring to, either: Del Toro and his squinty stare or cops in general?