Gladiator, though not the most intellectually stimulating film of this decade, was deeper and more complex than one might gather from it at first glance. Its theme was not a simple "good-guy versus bad-guy" one as one might gather from the title. In fact, Gladiator in essence had very little to do with gladiators. Its real purpose, its real underlying flavor, was to depict a man's struggle against decadence in his society and to restore it to the disciplined one that it had been, a man who was driven not by outlandish ideals, but by down-to-earth loyalties and affections.
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