Hidalgo
1/2

Let's get one thing straight: no matter what Disney is saying, Hidalgo is not based on a true story. It purports to tell the taleof Frank T. Hopkins, based on the man's "autobiographies." But the writings are questionable at best, and the race detailed within them, the Great Horse Race of the Bedouin, seems never to have existed. Why, then, is Disney advertising it as a historical retelling? I dunno, but it's dishonest. It is also, however, completely irrelevant to whether Hidalgo is entertaining or not.

So: Hidalgo is half good, half not. The half devoted to telling of the Great Horse Race, and Hopkins's winning of said race is undeniably entertaining, engrossing and compelling. But the other half of the film is unimpressive, devoted to meandering subplots and sub-subplots that serve no real purpose other than to pad out the running length.

The Great Horse Race is a 3000-mile-long contest between one-hundred of the best Arabian horses and riders. Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) enters at the invitation of an Arabian sheik (Omar Sharif), who is angered at Hopkins's boast that his horse, Hidalgo, is the greatest endurace-racing horse in the world. So Hopkins sets out to win some money and prove that Hidalgo, a mustang, is every bit as good as those Arabian pure-breds. Standing in his way are the desert conditions, a lack of water, and Lady Anne Davenport (Louise Lombard), who will do anything to win.

Except for a weird mystical vision thing near the end, every moment that Hopkins and Hidalgo are racing through the desert is entertaining, involving, or both. The relationship between the two is well-handled, especially considering there is no attempt to humanize Hidalgo. It is when the action leaves the desert that Hidalgo becomes tiresome. A pointless, nearly 30-minute sequence in which Hopkins rescues the sheik's daughter, Jazira (Zuleikha Robinson), goes on well past the point of interest, as do scenes developing the relationship between Hopkins and the sheik.

Viggo Mortensen, so perfectly cast in The Lord of the Rings, does a passable job here, but he is extremely wooden, and his accent is occasionally questionable. Still, Mortensen's real-life love of animals (after filming, he purchased the horse that plays Hidalgo) shines through, allowing the Hopkins/Hidalgo relationship to develop more realistically. Omar Sharif, Louis Lombard, and Zuleikha Robinson all do okay work, but the unimportant supporting performances are ceaselessly awful.

Mortensen has said that he was attracted to Hidalgo because it treats its foreign characters with respect. It's an honorable reason to take the part, but it's a shame he couldn't have chosen a more consistent project. If Hidalgo was more focused on the central race, it could have been a good adventure movie, but as is it's just average.

© 2004 Matt Noller