Gator (1976)

Three years after the hixploitation moonshining classic "White Lightning", Burt Reynolds's again portrayed Gator McKlusky in "Gator", but this time he was behind the camera as well in his directorial debut. Anyway, this time around Gator has just been released from federal prison for moonshining when he is asked to help the police nab a crooked politician. Although not as good as "White Lightning", "Gator" is still a fun little film none the less. First off, Reynolds's is excellent in his role, he give a cool and calm performance that makes Gator a pretty easy hero to root for while watching this film. In addition the car chases are pretty sweet and exiting. I also thought Jerry Reed gave a excellent and slimy performance as the crooked Bama McCall. Now, as I said before "Gator" is not as good as "White Lightning" and certainly has its flaws. For one thing, the run time of just under two hours was a bit much and therefore the movie drags here and there, especially towards the end. Secondly and this is a big problem for me, the DVD is in full screen until for some odd reason it switches to wide screen format for the closing credits. That's a real shame because this movie was made to be shown in widescreen as the closing credits demonstrate. Despite those flaws though, "Gator" is still none the less an enjoyable film if not essential viewing.