Easygoing Arkansas good ol' boy Gator McKlusky (Burt Reynolds) is serving his second federal prison sentence for running moonshine when he learns his straight-arrow college graduate brother and his girlfriend have been murdered. Eager to take down corrupt county sheriff J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty), whom he suspects is behind his brother's death, Gator agrees to a federal attorney's deal that releases him from prison to infiltrate Connors' underground booze-running business.