The most significant thing about this vigorous thriller is that it marked the directorial debut of its star, Burt Reynolds. All through the film it is evident that Reynolds is trying to do a little something different with each scene. Sometimes he can't prevent the plot becoming bogged down in its own routineness, and the violence of the climax only just survives its juxtaposition with the previous humour, as characters we have come to like get brutally killed off. But the action scenes are first class, and Reynolds gets uniformly good performances from his actors: Jack Weston, stealing the film as a plump and faintly incompetent federal agent; Lauren Hutton, a cool, gap-toothed heroine; Jerry Reed, a country 'n' western singer who lends real menace and evil to the rather cardboard vice king; Alice Ghostley as a cranky social crusader with a passion for cats; and by no means least, from himself. Gator chalked up a bright start for its budding director which he never followed through enough.

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