A road warrior vigilante avenges his brother's death at the hands of a crazy motorist by using his souped-up pickup to apprehend drunken drivers and others who abuse their driving privileges... Read allA road warrior vigilante avenges his brother's death at the hands of a crazy motorist by using his souped-up pickup to apprehend drunken drivers and others who abuse their driving privileges.A road warrior vigilante avenges his brother's death at the hands of a crazy motorist by using his souped-up pickup to apprehend drunken drivers and others who abuse their driving privileges.
José Flores
- Policeman #1
- (as Jose Flores)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe five 1969 Dodge Chargers used in this film were actual "General Lee's" from The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), sold by Warner Bros to this production. Out of the five, two survived in the hands of stunt driver George A. Sack Jr. They are now being restored for "Dukes" stunt coordinator Gary Baxley by Smith Bros. Restorations.
- Goofs(at around 41 mins) Rick is driving through and there is a flashing red light for the crosswalk. He's looking for bad drivers but he runs straight through the crosswalk while a person is walking in front of him.
- Quotes
Joe Barker: There's order to the chaos of the universe - as above, so below. I mean, even here, there's a natural order posed by me, because here: I am God.
- Alternate versionsAbel Ferrara had to cut approximately 11 minutes of footage from the final cut due to the restrictions imposed by New World Television on the running length. A scene where Rick (Ken Wahl) and Susan (Nancy Allen) go out for a meal and debate the motives behind the gladiator made up the majority of the cut footage; it is unknown whether future DVD releases will contain missing scenes to this date (May, 2007).
- ConnectionsReferenced in A Short Film About the Long Career of Abel Ferrara (2004)
Featured review
Family-friendly vigilante
A deranged (and easily identifiable) 70's muscle car goes on a killing spree, so the brother of a victim (Ken Wahl) decides to build his own Death Truck (with sheets of steel, grill protector, and a spear-gun) to bring vigilante justice to the streets at night. Will he catch the killer?
The poster and the plot summary sound like "can't lose" kind of idea. Anyone familiar with the end of THE EXTERMINATOR 2 or the real-life rampage by Marvin Heemeyer will see some comfortable familiarity in the scenario of a guy souping up his truck to exact righteous vengeance upon the wicked. Unfortunately this film squanders the premise largely out of adherence to the TV standards of the time.
For one, it's extremely cheap and lacking in any of the cold, calculating style of Ferrara's other 80's films. Additionally the script presents plenty of problems that make the premise seem much more ridiculous than it had to be. The movie takes great pains to make Ken Wahl's descent into vigilantism gradual and emotionally realistic, yet stretches credulity many times as he would not be able to get away with it so long and not be able to hide it from his friends and lover (Nancy Allen) who know him, know about his dead brother, and know about his fancy truck. Yes "The Gladiator" as he calls himself becomes something of a celebrity with the cops not-so-hot on his trail, but he puts effort into to trying to get people to pull over and adhere to a citizen's arrest rather than hurting or killing anyone. This leaves dozens of witnesses who could easily see his license plate, but it doesn't come to anything.
Personally I think the film would have been a lot better had they decided to make it more realistic, give us some tension with the authorities closing their net around him, or else to just gone all-out with the violence and mayhem. We could have seen Wahl start as a noble do-gooder turn into a monster just as bad as the one who created him. The film hints at this but never delivers. As it is, THE GLADIATOR unfortunately stands as an extremely unsatisfying yet fascinating window into the forgotten realm of 80's TV movies aimed at adults but safe enough for kids.
The poster and the plot summary sound like "can't lose" kind of idea. Anyone familiar with the end of THE EXTERMINATOR 2 or the real-life rampage by Marvin Heemeyer will see some comfortable familiarity in the scenario of a guy souping up his truck to exact righteous vengeance upon the wicked. Unfortunately this film squanders the premise largely out of adherence to the TV standards of the time.
For one, it's extremely cheap and lacking in any of the cold, calculating style of Ferrara's other 80's films. Additionally the script presents plenty of problems that make the premise seem much more ridiculous than it had to be. The movie takes great pains to make Ken Wahl's descent into vigilantism gradual and emotionally realistic, yet stretches credulity many times as he would not be able to get away with it so long and not be able to hide it from his friends and lover (Nancy Allen) who know him, know about his dead brother, and know about his fancy truck. Yes "The Gladiator" as he calls himself becomes something of a celebrity with the cops not-so-hot on his trail, but he puts effort into to trying to get people to pull over and adhere to a citizen's arrest rather than hurting or killing anyone. This leaves dozens of witnesses who could easily see his license plate, but it doesn't come to anything.
Personally I think the film would have been a lot better had they decided to make it more realistic, give us some tension with the authorities closing their net around him, or else to just gone all-out with the violence and mayhem. We could have seen Wahl start as a noble do-gooder turn into a monster just as bad as the one who created him. The film hints at this but never delivers. As it is, THE GLADIATOR unfortunately stands as an extremely unsatisfying yet fascinating window into the forgotten realm of 80's TV movies aimed at adults but safe enough for kids.
helpful•10
- Aylmer
- Dec 28, 2020
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![Nancy Allen, Brian Robbins, Robert Culp, Rick Dees, Stan Shaw, and Ken Wahl in The Gladiator (1986)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGE4M2MzYzgtNzhkMy00NmRjLWFkMWUtMTRjMzlhNjMxNDZkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU0NTI0Nw@@._V1_QL75_UY133_CR2,0,90,133_.jpg)