In short: The Gladiator (1986)

A serial killer is haunting the streets of LA, killing other drivers in his souped up car for the tiniest of infractions of the highway code. One of his victims is Jeff Benton (Brian Robbins) who gets killed for running a yellow light while on a drive with his working class car mechanic brother Rick (Ken Wahl) in Rick’s pick-up truck.

Unlike Jeff, Rick survives the attack. Traumatized and angry, he eventually starts to turn his rebuilt pick-up into a bit of combat vehicle and starts roaming the street at night to commit his own brand of vigilante justice; he’s not out to kill anyone, mind you.

The Gladiator seems to be one of the more seldom seen films of the great Abel Ferrara, so much so that even a pretty big admirer like myself has only gotten around to digging it out more than thirty years after it came out. But, now having seen it, this isn’t mandatory watching even for the hardcore Ferraraist. Apparently initially planned for a theatrical release, the film earned a somewhat fitting place as a TV movie of the week on ABC.

It’s not that it’s a terrible film, but it goes over ground that was well-trodden even in 1986, adding very little to tales of vigilantism and cars – unlike you’re really into the concept of vigilantism in cars - and lacking the exploitation factor to make it a more fun watch. Sure, there are quite a few moody shots of Wahl or his nameless enemy cruising through the streets of Los Angeles by night, and the very Ferrara mirroring of Rick and his enemy as two sides of the same coin isn’t completely without interest, but that’s not really enough to to carry a whole film.


It’s Ferrara light, very probably cut down for TV by exactly those scenes it would need to work, ending up a bit too bland, a bit too slow, and quite a bit too friendly to be of particular interest.