Movie Review: Gator (1976)

 

DIRECTOR: Burt Reynolds. CAST: Burt Reynolds, Jack Weston, Lauren Hutton, Jerry Reed, Alice Ghostley, Dub Taylor, Mike Douglas, Burton Gilliam, William Engesser, John Steadman, Stephanie Burchfield, Dudley Remus, Alex Hawkins, Don Ferguson.
Burt Reynolds makes his directorial debut with this sequel to 1973’s WHITE LIGHTNING, which means that Bobby “Gator” McKluskey is back! This time, a federal agent has roped Gator into going undercover by threatening to imprison his elderly father and turn his daughter over to foster care. Gator is to help take down a good ol’ boy mob boss who has his greedy paws in everything from extortion to drugs, underage sex trafficking, and corruption on all levels. He also meets the potential woman of his dreams along the way, but that is a given when Burt is involved. GATOR benefits from a bigger budget than its predecessor; the rather nice camera work and set designs do a decent job at almost distracting the viewer from it being a rather uneven story. Lauren Hutton’s involvement is mostly inconsequential filler while Alice Ghostley’s comic-relief role seems random and out of place. Burton Gilliam is interesting as a perversely sleazy, always-smiling creep of a gangster. However, Jerry Reed pretty much steals the show as evil small-town mob boss Bama McCall from the moment he first steps onto the screen. He digs deep into his role and plays it with gusto, enjoying every slimy second that he has onscreen. Hard to believe that he wasn’t an experienced actor. GATOR isn’t bad, it just has a hard time with what it wants to do with certain characters and deciding what kind of movie it wants to be—a slicker version of WHITE LIGHTNING or a goofy, lighthearted action comedy like the following year’s SMOKEY & THE BANDIT.

Movie Review: Blow Out (1981)

 

DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma. CAST: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz, Peter Boyden, Curt May, John Aquino, John McMartin, Robin Sherwood, Michael Tearson, Deborah Everton, J. Patrick McNamara, Missy Cleveland, Roger Wilson, Lori-Nan Engler, Cindy Manion, Missy Crutchfield, Marcy Bigelman, Ann Kelly, Dean Bennett. 
BLOW OUT is the second reinterpretation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic BLOW-UP (Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION was the first in 1974), but with sound used instead of photography. John Travolta is Jack Terry, a horror movie sound technician who is out in a local park recording potential sound effects when he witnesses a car drive off the road and into a nearby creek. Although the male driver drowns in the accident, Jack can rescue the woman passenger and takes her to the hospital. He finds out that the dead driver was the governor, whose associates persuade Jack to sneak the women passenger out of the hospital, as she is an escort whose presence would be an embarrassment to the deceased political figure. Jack plays back his park recording and discovers that the car wreck was no accident at all—he distinctly hears a gunshot prior to the car going off the road. He becomes more interested when the media gets involved and begins to discover the truth behind an assassination attempt on the governor. BLOW OUT is a very good movie, although its box office failure was a blow to John Travolta’s career as a serious actor for years until Quentin Tarantino cast him in PULP FICTION. John Lithgow’s ability to play the creepiest of bad guys likely started here while Dennis Franz deserves special mention for an incredible performance as a slimy blackmail photographer. Some might appreciate the story’s allusions to the Watergate scandal, JFK’s assassination, and the Lake Chappaquiddick incident. Brian De Palma fans will likely see BLOW OUT as an underrated entry in his extensive filmography. They are correct.