After Burt Reynolds passed away, I realised there was a lot of his movies I hadn’t seen – the ones that were decent, not Rent-A-Cop or anything like that. I watched Smokey and the Bandit for the first time on Netflix and that was fun. But White Lightning (1973) I liked a lot more, which is like an earlier version of Smokey with the same elements (car chases, a hostile sheriff, Jerry Reed in the mix). The thing this film has over Smokey is that there are some stakes in the story – it’s a gritty revenge plot with Burt as moonshine runner Gator Mclusky, making a deal with the feds to get out of prison and bust a corrupt small town sheriff who killed Burt’s younger brother. That driving motivation gives everything a bit of edge, helped by Ned Beatty’s performance as the unpleasant villain. Burt even gets to stretch himself with quality acting (the speech about his brother is tops). Charles Bernstein’s nifty score was later reused by Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 