As the screenplay credit by John Sayles would seem to indicate, director Lewis Teague’s Alligator is meant to be a brainy, sardonic take on the subgenre of movies that involve rampaging animals. But its satirical aims are hardly more refined than those found in Joe Dante’s cheeky Piranha, and a great deal more.
The story is as dumb as one could possibly hope for on the surface: A pet alligator, flushed down the toilet in 1968, comes across a pile of dead dogs on which a Chicago genetic lab has been performing growth hormone experiments. Flash forward some years later and the reptile has grown almost rapidly enough to pace rampant civic corruption and back-scratching politics above ground.
It isn’t long before the creature tastes the blood of hard-working cops, enterprising pet shop owners, and middle-class children and wants more. Meanwhile, a police officer with a troubled past, David Madison (Robert Forster), seizes the alligator attacks as an opportunity to erase the stink of shame that still hovers over him in the wake of an assigned partner being killed in the line of duty. At the very least, David assumes that his heroics will satiate the ravenous tabloid journalists, who are portrayed so broadly that you’d have to assume that they were all on beat for The Daily Planet.
All that stands in the officer’s way are the sexy biologist whose interest in the beast is near-familial, the gruff police chief, the overzealous reporter, the rest of the police force, city hall, the genetic lab that’s bribing city hall, two tons of snap-jawed wild animal, and an egotistic hunter. All that and a nonstop string of cracks about his receding hairline.
Sayles’s overachieving work here suggests a script doctor who took it upon himself to play God to assist what he felt was an otherwise terminal patient. And as a director of sorts, Teague is only too willing to hand over the project to Sayles’s hunger for allegorical subplots. Maybe I’ve eaten too many steroid-jacked dog corpses myself, but I prefer my dumb satires of dumb movies (i.e., Wet Hot American Summer, Scary Movie, again Piranha) to revel in being dumb.
Image/Sound
It’s in the correct aspect ratio, but that’s about all I can say in the way of recommending this disc. Weak, milky colors are complemented by a lack of sharpness. Black levels in the sewer are frequently gray, and flesh tones (interestingly) often read as jaundiced green. The sound is hollow. The 5.1 surround mix only adds to the echo chamber feel.
Extras
It’s a fairly good thing that Lewis Teague, as usual a little too naïve for my tastes, was paired with Robert Forster, as their commentary track is at least more worth listening to than Teague’s solo track on Cujo. The meatiest feature, though, has to be the interview with John Sayles, who predictably gets all writers’ workshop on us.
Overall
Flush it down the toilet.
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