Burt Reynolds, pin-up boy of the year past, is here this week in White Lightning, a fast paced melodrama that should provide good entertainment for the action fans.
Reynolds, often embarrassingly coy in his television appearances, is locked in his movie career, into the characterization of the tough rough-hewn type, a Bogart/Gable combination with a touch of Astaire. Which is fine for he probably does it better than anyone else.
In White Lightning he is very well cast in the pattern of Gator McKlusky, on the 'inside' for running bootleg whiskey and 'sprung' to help Treasury agents trap the bootleggers.
So far, so good. Then the plot deviates into Gator's pursuit of a sadistic sheriff, probable murderer of his brother. Fortunately, Reynolds is forceful enough to carry the plot tangle and enough comedy is injected to balance the inevetable ultra-violence.
The supporting roles are in the main well-handled. Jennifer Billingsley is just too much-mouthed as the floozie, and Ned Beatty is the stereotype sheriff, but the characters that pepper the story, Louise Latham, the secretary, Bo Hopkins, a fellow driver, Matt Clark, a nervously working undercover and R.G. Armstrong as the gang leader, are well-served by William Norton's dialouge and the Joeseph Sargent direction.
More hits than misses with White Lightning, with the hits the easy style of Reynolds, some super auto sequences and the all-round professionalism of the production.
Review of White Lightning
