This story is very reminiscent of the adventure films that were made in the 1930's and with everything that occurs in this film it would have made a terrific Saturday afternoon serial. Story is set in the late 1800's where we see Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) who is half American Indian but doesn't like to mention it to anyone due to the racism that was occurring during the times. His horse (and best friend) is Hidalgo and they enter the famous Ocean of Fire race in Arabia which the prize is $10,000 but once they arrive all the Arabs tell him he has no chance of winning considering the lineage of their horses.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** The race covers 3,000 miles and many die during it's course and in charge of it is Sheikh Riyadh (Omar Sharif) who has a rambunctious daughter named Jazira (Zuleikha Robinson) who wants Frank to win because an impending marriage to someone she doesn't love hangs in the balance. During the race Frank has time to save Jazira from her father's rival and also turn down bribes from Lady Anne Davenport (Louise Lombard) who wants him to lose.
This is directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III) who shows once again that he's more than able to make fun adventure flicks and simply put this is a fun film to watch. It is a bit long and your never convinced that Frank and Hidalgo would be able to finish a 3000 mile race in the blazing Arabian desert sun but this is not the type of film to necessarily nit-pick about specifics with. Mortensen is well cast as the stoic cowboy and in fact he's so stoic that in many scenes it's Hidalgo who flashes more facial expressions! One of the interesting things about the script occur when different characters look down at Hidalgo because he's a mixed breed which parallels Frank who is half American Indian and takes the insults aimed at his horse personally. This film has so many scenes of action and acts of heroism that it leaves no room for any type of love story to develop and twice (yep, twice!) Mortensen walks away from a pretty woman who stand there awaiting a kiss from him. The story here follows the same formula as the adventure flicks of yesteryear and while it's definitely not in the league of something like "Gunga Din" it does capture the spirit of a film such as that which in essence is all that it wanted to do.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** The race covers 3,000 miles and many die during it's course and in charge of it is Sheikh Riyadh (Omar Sharif) who has a rambunctious daughter named Jazira (Zuleikha Robinson) who wants Frank to win because an impending marriage to someone she doesn't love hangs in the balance. During the race Frank has time to save Jazira from her father's rival and also turn down bribes from Lady Anne Davenport (Louise Lombard) who wants him to lose.
This is directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III) who shows once again that he's more than able to make fun adventure flicks and simply put this is a fun film to watch. It is a bit long and your never convinced that Frank and Hidalgo would be able to finish a 3000 mile race in the blazing Arabian desert sun but this is not the type of film to necessarily nit-pick about specifics with. Mortensen is well cast as the stoic cowboy and in fact he's so stoic that in many scenes it's Hidalgo who flashes more facial expressions! One of the interesting things about the script occur when different characters look down at Hidalgo because he's a mixed breed which parallels Frank who is half American Indian and takes the insults aimed at his horse personally. This film has so many scenes of action and acts of heroism that it leaves no room for any type of love story to develop and twice (yep, twice!) Mortensen walks away from a pretty woman who stand there awaiting a kiss from him. The story here follows the same formula as the adventure flicks of yesteryear and while it's definitely not in the league of something like "Gunga Din" it does capture the spirit of a film such as that which in essence is all that it wanted to do.