cult film freak: BURT REYNOLDS WITH JERRY REED AND JACK WESTON IN 'GATOR'

Burt Reynolds in GATOR Year: 1976 Rating: **1/2

Burt Reynolds got the directing bug for the WHITE LIGHTNING sequel GATOR, that's really more a reboot given a similar plot with the titular moonshiner now donning a slick mustache, dating big city newscaster Lauren Hutton, raising a young daughter and seeming more like a professionally-suave secret-agent than Southern rogue reluctantly gathering information for the feds... in this case an affably overweight Jack Weston, who'd have made a worthier constant sidekick than random connection...

He hires Burt's Gator McKlusky to help nab a crime boss that's horribly miscast, and not because of acting since Jerry Reed (who sings the funky title theme song) is almost always great...

Jerry Reed and William Engesser in GATOR

As a cold-blooded ex-con sharing a past with Burt's Gator, neither seem very connected... in friendly or unfriendly ways... like they would the following year in SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (or even WW AND THE DIXIE DANCEKINGS), when Reynolds became the biggest star on the planet...

That's when pulpy dime-novel programmers like GATOR... with a few rushed car/boat chases (to remind everyone it's down south) and overall seeming more like an expensive TV-movie than understated theatrical... were brushed aside: until after Burt's good-old-boy and big-city romantic-comedy fame had faded, and he thankfully returned to basic crime flicks like HEAT and MALONE.