I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

After a promising start and a car chase almost nothing happens through a huge portion of the movie, they drive around, Burt talks to people for what seems like meaningless conversations, he uses his real name, everyone seems to know he's working for the feds, he openly writes notes in a small book, there is this real annoying woman he is screwing behind his buddy's back, etc, etc. Some pretty bad acting, amateur actors, bad fighting, bad lighting, bad direction and a horrible script. Another dull car chase and then the end.One of Burt's worse movies. Not a lot of effort was put into this.

I've gotta admit, "White Lightning" wasn't at all what I was expecting. You see the words, "Burt Reynolds", "car" and "South" and it evokes the awesomeness that is "Smokey and the Bandit". Just how it is. But this is more serious. Reynolds still wields the good ol' boy charm, but he also seethes as he seeks to avenge his brother's senseless death at the hands of a corrupt sheriff (Ned Beatty, one of the great fascist lawmen).There's something about this movie that works. The sweaty southern time and place, the long-ago political climate, the brooding protagonist. There's just enough fun here with the car chases to balance out the bitter injustice.7/10

Imagine sitting down to watch one of them good ol' boys pitcher shows from the Deep South, with Burt Reynolds a'grinnin' and a'fightin' . . .And finding out that, despite some quibbling errors, Joe Sargent's White Lightning is a small joy, a movie that has more than enough good performance, bite, and raw anger to raise it above the redneckery that Reynolds descended into as his career morphed into a cartoon.What makes White Lightning work is that Reynolds isn't cute and Ned Beatty, as his adversary, a thoroughly corrupted county sheriff, isn't a bufoon. Beatty is in no small part what makes the movie work--his rant against those who would take his little empire away from him (Washington bureaucrats, commie college students, colored agitators) doesn't make him likable, just believable.Plus, the movie looks good. It's grimy and sweaty; you can feel the heat coming off the engine blocks of the Ford Galaxie 500s. All the characters ooze perspiration in White Lightning; clear drops of sweat that seem interchangeable with the liquor being brewed and sold by everybody and his cousin.Arkansas looks unbearably hot and humid, angry and nasty.Just like Reynolds and Beatty.

White Lightning is the first of two appearances Burt Reynolds made as Gator McKlusky, moonshiner with a mission. He's got a year to go on a rap for running illegal whiskey, but gets word of the death of his kid brother, arrested and later found drowned in a lake in another county. He decides to help the Feds get the corrupt good old boy sheriff who runs that county, Ned Beatty.Of course that means going against tradition that southern folks have about cooperating with revenuers. One of Beatty's sideline enterprises is a nice partnership with R.G. Armstrong who's a crazy sadistic old shiner from the piney woods.Beatty and Armstrong play a pair that was rapidly disappearing from the south because of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the Sixties. They don't like the fact their world is changing one little bit. Long haired hippie types like Reynolds's brother apparently was, arouse their murderous ire as surely as Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney did.White Lightning did a respectable business in the red state area of the USA and certainly was a nice boost to Burt Reynolds career. More than his fans will be pleased with it.