Gator, el confidente

I'm a huge fan of Burt Reynolds. The man just won't go down, no matter what odds are stacked against him. People can say what they want about him, he's certainly no quitter and he usually comes out on top. He's been a hero of mine for most of my life and I've grown up loving his movies. Did anyone ever see the good ole boy flick "White Lightning"? Well this is the sequel.

While this might be a strange sequel, I can understand why it is so different from the first. First off, this was made mostly for the drive-in crowd who may not have caught "White Lightning". This allowed the sequel to be a bit looser, where it didn't have to deal too much with what happened in "Lightning". Basically, what you're getting is a a continuation of the Gator McClusky character.

Here's a quickie on the plot: Swamp rat, Gator McClusky is living the life after just being released from the State Penn. He's currently spending his days moonshining with the old man, when the feds come to him with a proposition. Infiltrate a group led by childhood friend, Bama McCall (Jerry Reed), get enough evidence to bust him, or go back to prison for making moonshine. It's a hard choice. Double cross a lifelong friend or go back to prison and lose custody of your daughter. Needless to say, Gator goes with option A and eventually, all hell will break loose.

This was Burt's first shot at directing and, for the most part, he does okay. I have a few quibbles though. This is a PG-rated flick that was most-likely marketed as a comedy. There is plenty of comedy, in fact, from watching the first ten-minutes, you're going to think this is "Smokey and the Bandit" done in the swamps with Jack Weston playing a New York Smokey. There are a lot of laughs in this film and almost all of the characters are likeable. So this leads to my big bitch: Why in the HELL did everything go from lighthearted to cold and violent in the last act? Why did everything have to go down-hill in such a hurry? Maybe it's because the film spends too long meandering in pointless situations and then, when time comes for something significant, it happens lightning-quick. That is why I had such a hard time believing Jerry Reed as the bad guy. His performance was top notch but the film's pacing makes him go from good buddy, to mean, crooked, bad ass way too quickly.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but it's all very cofusing. Maybe, had the film been edited and trimmed a bit better, all of this would have been a bit more believable and things would have ran more smoothly. But being as it is, the whole thing has a very truncated feel. Watch it and you'll see what I mean.

I'm giving this film a 7/10 because, despite it's flaws, it's a hell of a lot of fun and Burt gives the kind of performance that you've come to know and love. "Gator" is definitely a good movie, once you get past it's faults. It's a real shame that movies with this kind of theme aren't made anymore.

"Gator," Burt Reynold's feature film debut shows very brief flashes of twisted dark-comedy, but the vast majority of it just plain sucks the big one. I mean, Reynolds took the gritty, funny, sweaty, realistic character from "White Lightning" and completely threw him away, replacing the original Gator McClusky with the slick, mustachioed, urbanized, Hollywood Burt Reynolds we'd seen cracking wise on talk shows. No character, no grit, no acting--just Burt doing a caricature of himself. On top of that add a lame script that could have been adapted for any actor and any lead character, static direction, and virtually no continuity from the first hit film (now Gator has a son and no mother?). Only Jerry Reed rises above the lame-itude, beginning an acting career he was never allowed to fully develop beyond being Burt's sidekick. A waste of time. See "White Lightning" twice and you'll have a better time than watching this sequel.

Gator, As much as I respect Roger Ebert, I don't care what Ebert says. This is a good film. It is Funny at times, has action, and entertaining for Reynolds directorial debut. Sure there are some mistakes but Reynolds took some chances too, some subtle. Filming the chase scenes on water can prove to be difficult but it came off well.

Jerry Reed did a fine and convincing job as a corrupt antagonist without playing up to a false or cheesy southern stereotype. Lauren Hutton also did a fine job as a fresh face in this film without any clumsy or unnecessary over acting.

The ending is unexpected and without following movie formula as Ebert claims (See book titled, "I hated, hated, HATED this film"). Reed's song was a big number for him after the release of Gator and Bobby Goldsboro's music was beautiful and perfect for the films heart-breaking end. Pure entertainment.

This 1976 sequel to Burt's successful good-ole-boy movie WHITE LIGHTNING doesn't represent its star in peak form--as actor or director. (The picture was uncreditedly co-directed by James Best, star of several Sam Fuller movies; he didn't learn much from the old man.) But it's memorable for one reason only--for the guy who, for my money, takes the cake for Greatest Character Actor of the Seventies Gone to Waste.

Jerry Reed is best known for his novelty songs and his appearances in bumptious comedies like HOT STUFF (opposite Suzanne Pleshette and Dom DeLuise). But look at his chillingly suave downhome hit man in Michael Ritchie's THE SURVIVORS, or his magnificent performance here, and you see the man who should have had Tommy Lee Jones' career.

As Bama, a dirt-poor boy made good as a pimp and a gangster, Jerry Reed has the kind of unnameable connection with the audience that other singers-turned-actors like Sinatra and, on occasion, Willie Nelson had. His Bama never lets you forget the tin-shack fate he overcame through a life of peddling sin: he's like the redneck star of his own blaxploitation movie playing in his head. The smoothie charmer who can turn sadistic-violent on a dime is as ripe an opportunity for ham as they come, but Jerry Reed is genuinely seductive and chilling--and Reynolds hands him scene after scene to steal. The guy was a great actor--and he never got the chances that a similar (and less varied) actor like Charles Napier got.

If someone's reading this has the opportunity--give the guy a job.

one of the most endearing qualities about this movie is the fact that it brings the seventies back to your memories...it was filmed in 1976 and it shows it often....the scene where jerry (reed) enters the "southside shuffle "topless" bar...nails the period completely... as well as other fashions, lingo, and of course burt himself...who "owned" the seventies....due to this movie and his other good ole boy films of the south....coupled with the overwhelming popularity of smokey and the bandit (yet to come a year later)...established burt as a seemingly permanent fixture in cinema back then...I always thought burt would stay on top I guess...he seemed invincible as the #1 box office attraction...he is definitely an icon of the seventies time capsule...his swagger and his sense of humor put a brand on me as I remember many times in my life (silently) asking myself...what would burt do in a situation like this?....

as pure acting goes...the film had one of the best supporting actors around and due to his lack of experience I guess you would just have to sum up jerry reed as being a "natural".....he played the villain so well you wanted him to stop...and go back to the good ole boy that you knew he could be (later as cletus snow in smokey and the bandit)

gator is/was one of my all time favorite films...from a time period that I thought would never end...I miss it and this film will help you reunite with it if you are nostalgic at all...