Gladiator (1992 film)
| Gladiator | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Rowdy Herrington |
| Produced by | Frank Price Stephen J. Roth |
| Screenplay by | Lyle Kessler Robert Mark Kamen |
| Story by | Djordje Milicevic Robert Mark Kamen |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Brad Fiedel |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
| Edited by | Harry B. Miller III Peter Zinner |
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Production
company |
Price Entertainment
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| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $9.2 million |
Gladiator is a 1992 American sports drama film directed by Rowdy Herrington, and starring Cuba Gooding Jr., James Marshall, Brian Dennehy, and Robert Loggia. The film tells the story of two teenagers trapped in the world of illegal underground boxing. One is fighting to pay off gambling debts accumulated by his father. The second is fighting for the money to get out of the ghetto. While being exploited by a boxing promoter, the two teens become friends.
Tommy Riley and his father have just moved to start a new life. Tommy's father has accumulated many gambling debts but has found a new job that requires him to travel extensively, leaving his son alone at home. Tommy also has a hard time fitting in at school, having crossed gang members. He takes a job at a local diner and enters into a romantic relationship with Dawn, the daughter of the owner, but is jumped by the gang members outside the restaurant. Seeing how well Tommy is able to fight, a local boxing promoter by the name of Pappy Jack offers Tommy a chance to fight in an illegal underground boxing operation. When two men arrive announcing that Tommy's father owes a large sum of money to pay off gambling debts, Jack convinces his boss, boxing promoter Jimmy Horn to buy out the debt, which forces Tommy to pay off his father's debts by boxing.
Tommy enjoys a great deal of success and develops a friendship with Romano and Abraham "Lincoln" Haines, two fellow fighters. However, he continues to be harassed by gang members, and discovers that two of them, "Black Death" and "Short Cut" are boxers who fight dirty, using elbows, kicks, knees, and low blows, and counting on the crooked refs to overlook the clear violations. Tommy defeats Black Death in the ring, but Short Cut hides a fluid in his gloves, which he uses to blind Romano during a match. Unable to defend himself, Romano is brutally beaten in the ring and is declared brain dead by the doctors. Short Cut later tries the same trick on Tommy, but Tommy has learned to fight dirty, and still defeats Short Cut despite being unable to see.
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