646f9e108c Agents force a former con man to help them nab a corrupt politician. &quot;Gator,&quot; Burt Reynold&#39;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 &quot;White Lightning&quot; and completely threw him away, replacing the original Gator McClusky with the slick, mustachioed, urbanized, Hollywood Burt Reynolds we&#39;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&#39;s sidekick. A waste of time. See &quot;White Lightning&quot; twice and you&#39;ll have a better time than watching this sequel. I&#39;m a huge fan of both Gator and White Lightning, but White Lightning is the much better movie. Granted, Gator has Jerry Reed and Dub Taylor, but White Lightning has Ned Beatty, Bo Hopkins, Diane Ladd, and Shaky Puddin&#39;. The dark, gritty atmosphere cast against Reynolds&#39; frat boy laughter plays well together.<br/><br/>Additionally, the human element represented by Skeeter and Ma McClusky keep the movie from becoming a parody of the South and Southerners. White Lightning does what the original Walking Tall does not–put a face on corrupt policies in the South with decent acting and without too much cornpone.<br/><br/>I have to admit, the roles played by Burton Gilliam and Bill Engesser in Gator are particularly memorable. Gator is sloppily directed by Reynolds himself and filled with anti-ethnic humor that Reynolds has picked up from all those guest shots on the talk shows with Don Rickles et al. [13 Sep 1976, p.89]
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