White Lightning Never Strikes Twice… Because Once Is Enough!

This 1973 film directed by Joe Sargent (who would make his best known film, The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three a year later) is a fun mix of action and adventure with a few dramatic moments and a whole lot of folksy backwoods charm. Burt Reynolds is top billed as a man named Gator McClusky, an ex-con who is let out of jail. While he was serving time he learned that his brother was killed by the local Sheriff, a man named J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty).

When Gator gets out of the clink, he wants revenge and finds the perfect opportunity to get it when he makes a deal with some F.B.I. agents who want his help in taking down an illegal moonshine operation. Of course, the fact that Connors has his fingers in this lucrative pie means that both Gator and the Feds should be able to get what they want out of this little arrangement, but once he goes undercover to work his way in, Gator finds that this isn't going to be nearly as easy as he had first hoped it would be.

At roughly two hours White Lightning really is a little longer than it probably should have been given that this is a pretty straight forward story, but for the most part, the film works and it works quite well. Sargent's direction is best described as workmanlike, he doesn't seem particularly concerned here with flashy camerawork or crazy angles but instead shoots everything with a pretty basic style. A little more flash in the cinematography department might have added to the fun but regardless, the location shooting employed in the film helps out a lot. There's lots of ‘local color' here what with the backwoods locations where the admittedly very nicely choreographed car chases play out. These tend to be the highlights of the movie and they are pretty intense. In a day and age where a lot of computer enhancement goes into car chases you've got to admire the guys who were able to do it this well and this authentically without one pixel's worth of digital trickery.

But what of Reynolds' work in this film? He plays the good ol' boy stereotype well, in fact he made quite a career out of it in the seventies, but he's a little less hokey here than he is in pictures like Smokey And The Bandit (as great as that picture is) and for the most part he plays things completely straight here. He makes good use of his natural charisma and leading man charm and handles himself very well in the action scenes too. Reunited with Ned Beatty (they had starred together in Deliverance not long before they made this film together) he is in good company. Beatty himself plays the crooked sheriff perfectly. He's pretty much a right rat bastard and he gives the role his all and is decked appropriately out so that he looks the part too. Bo Hopkins, R.G. Armstrong and a young Diane Ladd all show up here too, rounding out the cast nicely.

Three years later Reynolds would return to the role and direct the sequel, simply titled Gator. It's a more entertaining picture than this first one that moves at a better pace and proves a more satisfying watch, but as far as seventies era drive-in pictures go, you really can't go wrong with White Lightning. It's not a perfect movie but even with a few pacing issues here and there's it's a fun watch.

Kino presents White Lightning on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85.1 widescreen. This is a fairly grainy picture but it would seem to be pretty authentic in how it replicates the look of the movie, as the DVD release was fairly grainy too. No really serious print damage issues to not, however, just a few specks now and again. Detail is pretty good though it never hits reference quality levels likely because of the way that the movie was shot and lit in the first place. Colors are reproduced quite nicely though and black levels stay pretty strong. Not a mind-blowing transfer, but a film-like one that does offer a nice upgrade over the previous DVD release and there are no issues with noise reduction, edge enhancement or major compression artifacts.