Albino Alligator

MOVIE #1,594 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 04.30.24 PART OF THE INTERNET'S ONLY COMPREHENSIVE & RELENTLESSLY RESEARCHED KEVIN SPACEY DIRECTOR FOCUS PAGE This might be the stupidest thing I've done yet. I randomly came across this title and thought, “hey that’s a cool title! What’s it about? A killer white gator or something?” And — of course, it is not about that — in the process I realized it was directed by Kevin Spacey and so I thought, “sure, this is the last day in April and not the first but wouldn’t it be funny to do an exhaustive Director Focus on Kevin friggin’ Spacey, like, as a goof?” So that’s what I am doing today as a little bonus, a little treat for nobody that no one asked for. You know, cause this is funny? Is it funny?? Lord help me.

I’ll discuss Kevin Spacey the man a little more in my next review (his second and final — TO DATE! — directorial effort, the biopic Beyond the Sea) because I really want to focus on his work behind the camera (lol no I don’t). The restraint shown by Spacey not to have also acted in this is commendable, at the very least. You get the gist instantly: this is gonna be a hangout movie, as we watch these three crooks holed up in a basement pub standoff with the ATF (this is just a year or so after Waco so of course it's the ATF). And I must say I appreciated the simplicity of the plot because it allowed me not to pay that close of attention and still not get lost!

Does this 'joke' make sense to you?


This isn't a period piece (although they're sort of going for those vibes tonally): they could just bleep out the swears before it airs. They had bleep-out technology in 1996, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Do you want to know why this movie is called "Albino Alligator," well that guy extraordinaire William Fichtner tells us why…

I am gonna start using “albo-gatored” as a verb in everyday conversation (they actually use that terminology as a verb before and during the film's climax, as in “hey, let's albo-gator these hostages, huh?” lol.)

Maybe it was just the knowledge that Kevin Spacey was behind the camera the whole time but something is just off here, or perhaps it's just so classically mid that it feels that way. Potato, potatoh. This is sitting at exactly 50% on R.T. and never has a film been more worthy of that middling grade. In some ways, this is the worst type of movie to watch: neither good, nor bad, but living in some netherworld of simply existing. It would matter more if it wasn't so clearly forgotten about.

I have one more Spacey joint to watch: his 2004 Bobby Darin biopic in which he also stars as the titular crooner. God help me. No, God forgive me.

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Albino Alligator is a 1996 American crime thriller film. The directorial debut of Kevin Spacey as well as the screenwriting debut of Christian Forte, it stars Matt Dillon, Faye Dunaway, and Gary Sinise. It tells the story of three small-time criminals who take hostages after being cornered by the police. The title refers to an anecdote told in the film, claiming that alligators will use an albino among them as sacrifice, so that the opposing alligators will be distracted and become prey themselves. It was released on September 9, 1996.