Cast:
Burt Reynolds (Bobby "Gator" McKlusky), Jennifer Billingsley (Lou), Ned Beatty (Sheriff J. C. Connors), Bo Hopkins (Roy "Rebel Roy" Boone), Matt Clark ("Dude" Watson), Louise Latham (Martha Culpepper), Diane Ladd (Maggie), R. G. Armstrong ("Big Bear"), Conlan Carter (Deputy), Dabbs Greer (Pa McKlusky), Lincoln Demyan (Warden Sims), and John Steadman ("Skeeter") Directed by Joseph Sargent (#557 - Jaws: The Revenge)
Review:
I imagine that no summer really starts unless you pick a movie with either good ol' boys or a star you are fond of. Burt Reynolds* had slummed around in television for several years (which included lead roles on Gunsmoke and Dan August) and a few movies of varying quality (100 Rifles [1969], Sam Whiskey [1969]), but it was his talk-show appearances that really got him noted attention before, well, Deliverance [1972] rocketed him into a name for film. Gradually, the films would rise in stature as a leading guy, with 1973 seeing him star in Shamus, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, and this movie, which he had worked with the producers previously with Sam Whiskey [1969] (incidentally, that film and Lightning had the same writer with William W. Norton). And yes, this is the movie that Steven Spielberg almost directed. As noted in a 2001 interview, he spent over two months on the film, scouted locations and was on the cusp of doing casting but he came to the realization that he "didn't want to start my career as a hard-hat, journeyman director", instead wanting something a bit more personal. He instead made a play for doing The Sugarland Express, which he ultimately made in 1974. It instead fell to Joseph Sargent (more of a regular TV director than a film director). It might have been his most noted film of the 1970s if it wasn't for his subsequent direction of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In 1976, Reynolds returned for Gator, which retained Norton as writer but with a twist: Reynolds as director (Norton was a character unto himself: he later became a would-be gun runner to the Irish National Liberation Army in the 1980s and shot an intruder in his home).
It's a match made in heaven for those who love a Southern tale of 101 minutes filled with a few car chases and a relatively game Reynolds in the reeds of a decent cast that holds it together for a pretty sobering time. Because, yea, it's a movie about getting one over the law, but don't forget that it starts with two guys getting shot on a boat (which is actually captured pretty well for a movie that basically makes one feel the sweat every now and then). It's a bout of obsession and hokum in trying to dodge both the sheriffs and those who don't like the idea of someone working as an informant (in this case the Department of the Treasury), and it is fun even if it meanders along for what could've really been a devious time, but hey, it is a good hellraiser movie. Before you got the Smokey and the Bandit rendition* of Reynolds, you get the inner workings of someone who was homing in gritty charm without straining in credibility of being a man of single-minded determination that is compelling and fun to see him crack through the conman stuff (it isn't easy playing friend and in one case, seducer). Beatty doesn't get as much time as you might think around Reynolds, but he makes for a quality adversary in the vein of a sundown town chief that clearly believes they are the knight of a community and that nobody deserves to be in their way: it's the kind of jagged confidence that is worth respecting from someone like him. The rest of the cast is fairly decent, rounding out the edges of small-town folks who play the line of swindler and swindled to varying effect. It's the kind of movie where the stunts of folks such as Hal Needham (a long-time friend of Reynolds, he first met him during production of Riverboat years prior) shine best, mostly with one particular car stunt in the film: the jump onto a moving barge. It isn't a great movie by any means, but it always end up doing something curious every now and then to make it worth a look, particularly on a warm summer day looking for familiar faces.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*I probably give Reynolds a bit of leeway when it comes to what I want to see from him. Hell, City Heat and Striptease have been on the shortlist for months!
*Lest we forget the hair, which was still natural around Deliverance: Burt Reynolds On Toupees, Trump, and Why He’d Never Work with Paul Tho | GQ. Also, if you look hard enough, you'll see Diane Ladd (spelled "Diane Lad" in the credits) and her daughter, Laura Dern, in this film.
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