Review
HIDALGO
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif and a horse
Directed by Joe Johnston
Opens Friday, March 5
Check listings
While driving home after seeing Hidalgo my date told me, "That wasn’t as awful as I thought it was going to be." I told him I really liked the film and he responded with a snort, "That’s what you get when you send a girl to review a movie about a pony." Maybe on his walk home from the theatre he ended up with a little more empathy for the little mustang that had to run an endurance race.
Hidalgo is a pony of mixed blood. His rider is a cowboy whose mother was a Sioux. The cowboy and pony have ridden many miles together and are touted as the best long riders in the world, but when that claim is called into doubt, they enter a 3,000 mile race through the deserts of Arabia and Persia.
In spite of trailers that make Hidalgo look like another attack from America on an Arab state, the movie actually represents all the different cultures with great respect. The Arabs speak Arabic, the Sioux speak Sioux and the typical jerks in the U.S. Cavalry speak out of their asses.
Based on a true story, Hidalgo is as much about Frank Hopkins’s (Viggo Mortensen) search for his own identity. He passes for white and has discarded most of his native ancestry. Meanwhile, his mustang pony, Hidalgo, is derided for his mixed blood by the thoroughbred-loving Arabs and Brits.
There are several sub-plots in this movie, some of which work and others that are just confusing (which prince is stealing which horse?). Granted there is an element of cowboy when Frank tells the locals how to live life American style, but the jingoism is relatively mild and mostly ignored by the Arab characters. Overall it is a rollicking tale of man vs. man vs. nature vs. himself.
Not having seen Viggo Mortensen in anything memorable beyond the never-ending Ring saga, I wasn’t expecting much from his acting, but he plays stoic and desperate admirably. The horse is an excellent straight man and Omar Sharif seems quite happy playing the role of Sheik of Sheiks. There is even a homage to the old Arabian Nights when Frank has to get himself out of a jam by plying the Sheik of Sheiks with tales of the Wild West and Buffalo Bill.
I don’t know whether it was because I expected so little from this film or I am a secret pony nut, but Hidalgo took me for a ride. |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.