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Hidalgo Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG-13 (for adventure violence and some mild innuendo) Theater release: March 05, 2004 by Touchstone Pictures Directed by: Joe Johnston Runtime: 2 hours 16 minutes Cast: Viggo Mortensen (Frank T. Hopkins), Zuleikha Robinson (Jazira), Omar Sharif (Sheikh Riyadh), Louise Lombard (Lady Anne Davenport), Adam Alexi-Malle (Aziz) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Hidalgo is based on the story of famed endurance rider Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) and his legendary Spanish mustang for which the film is named. The movie begins in 1890 when Hopkins is serving as a dispatch rider for the U.S. military while distance racing on the side. The life of this part Sioux Indian cowboy becomes deeply scarred after he unwittingly allows the massacre of a Sioux Indian tribe at Wounded Knee. Months later, while working as a cowboy clown in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, he is invited by an Arabian Sheikh (Omar Sharif) to participate in The Ocean of Fire, an annual 3,000-mile horse race across the Arabian Desert. Besides the prize money and personal honor, the outcome would determine whether Hopkins and his reputed mixed-blood mustang could measure up against the famed Bedouin riders and their purebred Arabian stallions.

Omar Sharif and Viggo Mortensen

Directed by Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park 3, Jumanji), Hidalgo seems to have all the right ingredients. Riding off the enormous popularity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it's great to see Aragorn already back in the saddle; naturally, Mortensen does most of his own riding in the film. Filmed on location in Morocco (and partly in California), the cinematography is often beautiful, occasionally breathtaking; you can't help but be reminded of Lawrence of Arabia at times. Add Disney/Touchstone's hype that it's "based on a true story," and it looks like a family-friendly adventure, right?

That's where Hidalgo's problems begin. Apparently, there is serious debate over the facts of Hopkins' life. The movie is based on his autobiography; you can read Hopkins' side of the story here, but beware of plot spoilers. But a simple Internet search yields the more widely held perspective that Hopkins' life as a cowboy is largely a hoax—The Long Riders' Guild, an association of equestrian historians, summarizes their research on this page. In short, it points out that there is no evidence that there was ever an Ocean of Fire race, no record that Hopkins was ever associated with Buffalo Bill, and no proof that Hopkins ever even rode a horse.

It's curious that Disney has made such an effort to puff up their factual claims over this film. There's a potentially good story here, and these historical matters could be overlooked in lieu of a solid adventure film. Unfortunately, Hidalgo can't even get its own facts straight. I found it strange that the filmmakers never bothered to show a map of the race route—until I realized that they probably never looked at one. The finish line is in Damascus … just yards away from a Mediterranean beach. Umm, kids, please refer to an old atlas if that doesn't strike you as impossible. (Is it any wonder that Hidalgo was written by John Fusco, who also drew heat for Western historical inaccuracies in Young Guns I and II?)

The race is on!

Even if the story were true, the film's events have been fictionalized beyond belief. Hopkins is too inconsistent. At times, he's portrayed as a clumsy drunk unable to mount his own horse. Later, he's throwing knives and firing his revolver with deadly accuracy. Hidalgo enjoys focusing on the culture clash between the Bedouins, the British aristocracy, the Old West, and Sioux Indians. Yet despite the strong sense of Hopkins as a fish out of water, he adapts to the Arabian Desert like a natural. In the middle of the race, he and Hidalgo help mount a daring rescue straight out of an Indiana Jones film. Throughout the movie, horse and rider both find their second wind seemingly out of nowhere. And Hidalgo is attributed so much human personality in his looks and actions, they may as well have taken it one step further and let him deliver his lines a la Mr. Ed.

Those qualities might still work for a children's movie in the tradition of Disney's Davy Crockett or The Black Stallion. The first half of Hidalgo is so tame, one wonders why it got a PG-13 rating. It becomes clear later after some bloodless beheadings, impalings, and a somewhat graphic scene of horse surgery, not to mention a silly subplot involving a compromising position with the Sheikh's daughter (Zuleikha Robinson). It's certainly a soft PG-13, but prepare to explain Muslim customs to your small children—including the supposed male punishment for adultery.

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After Aragorn	Printer view
In his first feature film since Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen is an adventurous cowboy in Hidalgo, a yarn that doesn't get all the facts right. But that's just fine with this myth-loving leading man.