The Gladiator is the Road Warrior meets Death Wish! So bad it's awesome! What works with The Gladiator is there's the simple formula were Ken Whal's brother is killed buy a road psycho! The recovering protagonist develops into a Road Warrior vigilante! A Road Warrior truck, with devices and lots of road action is just 80's fun. The bad; : T V movie style quality, and flat characters with predictable character arch. When the flat character with usual T V movie predictable plot devices blends and creates some story drag; But the bad actually makes Gladiator Awesome. When I watched The Gladiator back in the day , with my high school car buddy, Darrel loved this car movie. Car stunts are cool! Years latter, my friend Tony, got a laugh with The Gladiator late night classic's truck gimmicks and how Ken's conflicted character story has a cheesy complicated character ending. 7 stars worth the re watch on tubi.
Review of The Gladiator
