Albino Alligator

Three small-time criminals flee a robbery that goes wrong and end up trapped in a basement bar in New Orleans. With police surrounding the building and no way out, they take the patrons hostage, and a standoff begins. The authorities are not actually looking for the robbers, and neither side is willing to back down.

Albino Alligator is a 1997 crime thriller directed by Kevin Spacey, from a screenplay by Christian Forte, and it marks his first time behind the camera. Matt Dillon plays Dova, Gary Sinise is Milo and William Fichtner is Law, while Faye Dunaway, Viggo Mortensen and M. Emmet Walsh appear among the bar's occupants. Made for about 6 million dollars and running 97 minutes, the film was a modest production for the director's debut.

Audience reaction has been subdued: on TMDB it holds 5.7 out of 10 from 172 votes, and on IMDb it sits at 5.6 from roughly 5,800 ratings, suggesting a similar response across both. A film critics' rating of 5.4 from 20 reviews places professional opinion close to that of viewers. The title refers to a pool tactic in which one ball is offered as bait so an opponent misreads the situation, an idea the story returns to as the characters weigh who will be sacrificed.