White Trash

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

GATOR

Directed by BURT REYNOLDS Screenplay by WILLIAM NORTON

In the hierarchy of modern movie society, Gator must be ranked as poor white trash--the kind of tacky little film that finds its natural home in small-town drive-ins and at those tattered old downtown theaters that specialize in double-feature action programs. Yet Gator offers the agreeably self-satirizing presence of Burt Reynolds and evidence that he may also have some modest talent for vigorously unsophisticated direction.

Reynolds is cast as a moonshiner offered forgiveness for his sins against the revenue code if he will serve his country as an unofficial undercover agent. Specifically his assignment is to gather information against an erstwhile chum, a hoodlum played with menacing Southern smarm by Jerry Reed. The hood has become the chief source of corruption in one of those corrupt little Southern towns that may only exist in popular fiction, where their function is to focus the otherwise vague regional fears of Northern liberals. In his pursuit of Reed, the reluctant Reynolds becomes involved with an engaging assortment of odd characters: Jack Weston as a New York-born Government man parboiling in sweaty paranoia; Alice Ghostley as a dotty old bookkeeper who has the goods on the gangster; Lauren Hutton as a TV newshen whose professional ambitions ire at war with her attraction to the superstud from the swamps. The job also involves Reynolds, a former stunt man, in a couple of nice action sequences, including a high-velocity motorboat chase and an imaginatively staged concluding set-to with his former friend. Finally, there is a leave-taking between Reynolds and Hutton that is lightly, rightly touched with romantic rue.

What finally prevents Gator from rising above its humble origins is an awkward mixture of moods that Director Reynolds never really manages to sort out and smooth over. The picture's basic ambience is rather larkish, but there are melodramatic sequences of near-Victorian sentimentality (especially in an exploration of a cathouse specializing in drugged adolescents) and others that stress a kind of Disposall-style violence. These sudden shifts in tone are disorienting and make what might have been a modestly entertaining venture into something that is unfortunately less than the sum of its several good parts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.