White Lightning (1973) Burt Reynolds and Elvis Presley. among other actors, found themselves at a monumental crossroad in their careers.......with a monumental decision to make.....
Whether to pursue a serious acting career, with all the ups, downs and pitfalls that entails.......or settle for being a movie star, content to pump out negligible, machine-tooled 'vehicles', designed only to please your fans and put their asses firmly in theater seats on opening weekend.
With a few exceptions in his his filmography, Reynolds chose the movie star path and 'White Lightning' served as the template for many of his subsequent.....uh....vehicles.
Whether it veers toward comedy or action or a mixture of both, the blueprint remains the same.......Reynolds is the rough 'n ready, southern fried Good Ole Boy with a falsetto giggle and a penchant for wandering on to the wrong side of the law from time to time.
'White Lightning' starts with him already in prison for moonshine running......and he's fairly good natured about his situation until news of his young brother's murder reaches him.
In a scene inspired by the real life murders of Freedom Riders' in Mississippi, Burt's kid brother met his death at the hands of a corrupt, bigoted sheriff (an excellent Ned Beatty).......for no other reason than being one of them 'dirty hippie' protesters who unwisely mouthed off to the lawman.
Thirsting for revenge, Reynolds convinces the Feds to spring him from jail to go undercover and expose all the kickbacks Beatty collects from the moonshiners.
Reynolds pretty much sucks as a spy, but excels at both high speed car chases and dallying with a barefoot, backwoods, hot-to-trot Hottie. (Jennifer Billingsley).
And there you have the whole movie, considerably livened up by a terrific cast of Bad Ole Boy character actors like Bo Hopkins, Matt Clark and R.G. Armstrong. Together with Reynolds they make the whole film go down like honeyed whiskey with a touch of soda.
The only key element this film sadly lacks is more than one interaction between Reynolds and Beatty. They face off in only one brief, tensely comical moment and the film's all the poorer for it. Since the movie's primarily about fast cars, their showdown, naturally, is strictly vehicular.
A few years later, Reynolds would successfully lampoon this basic storyline in his slipshod, slapped-together 'Smokey And The Bandit' trilogy........with Jackie Gleason's clownish, sputtering sheriff replacing Beatty's murderous villain. To ever diminishing returns.......
As for us, we still like "White Lightning" as the best of Burt's Good Ole Boy movie star contraptions........containing just the right amounts of hellbent driving, cornpone humor and sudden, explosive action. So we'll Yee-Haw! out 3 stars (***).
To quote Reynolds's 'Gator' McCluskey, it's definitely more fun than going to an all-night dentist...........
No comments:
Post a Comment