White Lightning [DVD]

There was a style of movie making in the 70s where heroes were villains and villains were heroes, and violence ruled without apology. White Lightning is Burt Reynold's best work. It's a hillbilly car chase black comedy but not really. It's dark and nasty, and has its humor but the drama is pretty real as is the violence. It's filmed in rural Arkansas I believe, and the location shooting doesn't hide the sweat and humidity and the general conditions of life there. My favorite scene in the movie is when Burt and Roy Boone (Bo Hopkins) are delivering moonshine to a bar, and you hear the beginnings of a boogie riff as they are loading up outside, and when they swing the doors open, the volume of the music jumps up about 10 fold. In the theater this was about knock your socks off volume. A single girl is dancing to the music while the customers are fanning themselves to keep cool. As the moonshiners make their delivery the bartender (uncredited) reveals he knows Gator (Burt's) dad all of this dialog shouted over the music, which never reduces in volume. After this incident, Gator decides to burn his little black book where he's been keeping notes for his fed assignment - he decides the whiskey people are good folks and he only wants revenge on the sherrif, not everybody in the business. When he throws his black book in a burning trash barrel, Roy accuses him of sleeping with his girl friend (he is) and Gator deliberately picks a fight with him just to give the book time to burn. 70s movies like this sometimes require multiple viewings to catch details like this, the what and the why. Ned Beatty shaves his head and plays a much older man who "run Bogan County for 20 years" and sets the tone for the evil sherriff stories to follow. But Beatty's J.C. Connors is no buffoon - he's nasty, sadistic, and thinks nothing of killing anyone making trouble for him. Jackie Gleason he's not. One of Beatty's few early serious roles (Nashville and Deliverance come to mind). White Lightning is the godfather of the hillbilly / moonshine / car chaser of the 70s, but it's darker, more real than most of the slapstick that followed. Dukes of Hazzard, Smokey and the Bandit and half a dozen other owe their genre to White Lightning. Oh and Jennifer Billingsley, a very sexy actress who fits the part perfectly, and sadly didn't have a long career in films, is Burt's girl and she's more than just a pretty thing - she comes in downright handy when the going gets tough, When you see Gator and Roy unloading and the opening lucks of a 12-bar boogie in a back alley, crank up your volume and experience what it's like to walk into a rural bar - the place was probably real. Location shooting, the sweat is real. A tremendously good film often forgotten.

Not bad at all. Had a Cool Hand Luke meets the Bandit vibe. Real cars with real drivers. Excellent film for any no CGI needed collector.

Good movie. No problem with the DVD.

Burt is great

I love the old Burt Reynolds movies. This movie predates Smokey and the Bandit but has a similar kind of fun illegal liquor running, car chasing, bad ass Burt kinda fun to it. Jerry Reed is it, who is also in Smokey and The Bandit. They are great together. This movie isn't on a par with Smokey and The Bandit, but it is good fun and a rompin stompin Burt Reynolds movie.

Blu-Ray looks & sounds great. ■ exactly as Described & arrived on time ■

Awesome movie! Came with a nice slipcover as well!

Review of: White Lightning Bluray Kino Lorber Remaster First of all, let's clear up the editing issue that everyone has been complaining about for years. White Lightning would have been an R rated feature. However, the director and film company preferred to promote it to a younger audience, so the decision was made to cut it and go for the PG rating. White Lightning was never shown theatrically in its uncut version. So technically, this version is not edited since no one outside of the filmakers have ever seen the other version. Kino Lorber did an excellent job on the remaster. The violent scenes are shown much better lit, so the new 1080 detail almost makes this appear as an uncut edition. The audio is Master Audio; so the playback has full theatrical power. Unfotunately, the F Bombs and G-D's were all re-dubbed for the PG version. Overall this is the best available version of (what I consider to be) Bury Reynold's finest hour. A+++

Brill

Good quality. Enjoyable.

Tres bon

good burt car movie, doesn't have the commentary that the kl version has though.

One of my Favorite Movies growing up!!