Flak Magazine: Review of Hidalgo, 03.12.04

It's not rare for a big-screen biography to include some hyperbole, but try this on for size: "Nearly 80 experts from five countries have demolished every single one of [Frank] Hopkins' claims." That's the assessment of the Long Riders' Guild of the source material for Hidalgo, the purportedly true story of Frank Hopkins, who worked for the Pony Express, starred in Buffalo Bill's traveling show and won the 3,000-mile Ocean of Fire race across Arabia. The guild takes aim at just about everything — they doubt the existence not only of the Ocean of Fire race, but even of the movie's namesake steed. While Disney is standing by its "based on a true story" tag, screenwriter John Fusco admitted that he "had to take creative license with a sketchy story."

And for what? Hidalgo emerges barely worthy of being called Seabiscuit II. In the movie, Hopkins (Viggo Mortenson) rides the little mustang that could to improbable victory against the finest Bedouin thoroughbreds in a life-or-death Cannonball Run. This is director Joe Johnston's bailiwick; coming from Jumanji and Jurassic Park III, it's clear all he wants is a reason to make his characters run. A former Oscar winner for Raiders of the Lost Ark's visual effects, Johnston loves to toss his characters into heavy-handed set pieces, such as Hidalgo's assortment of dust storms, locust swarms and quicksand. They're tantamount to diversion; like the rocket-fast start of the race, they're an exciting cover for what slows to a crawling, plodding race.

With Johnston's eyes trained on optics and effects, every supporting character falls into such primal stereotypes as the wounded Indian, the sinister Arab barbarian, the mystical African servant and the evil white witch. In fact, the only way Hopkins bucks the trend is by being a half-breed like his horse, but even that is written out to horrifyingly campy ends. The obtuse way the movie Hopkins is allowed to "enlighten" the savage Arabs (and in rock star fashion — he even deveils a native lady!) might be what first caught the attention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who added their efforts to the fact-checking fray.

Hidalgo reminds the viewer that Mortenson can be much more entertaining than his sullen swordsman Aragorn would imply. The film's release came on the Friday after the Oscar Sunday that handed Return of the King 11 statuettes, and that context makes it a hell of a lot of fun to see Mortensen fall off his horse and punch people out of sheer contempt. He's the movie's lone bright spot, playing it loose early as the drunken fibber and bearing down as the race wears on.

Beyond Mortensen, it's obvious Johnston was aiming carefully, but no component of the movie really hits its mark. He thawed out Omar Sharif for a role as the wise sheik; any desert-based movie that manages to score Sharif isn't being very subtle with its homages. Sharif doesn't invoke Alec Guinness' Prince Faisal the way it feels he was supposed to, though, and Hidalgo lacks David Lean's love of the landscape. In Lawrence of Arabia, cinematographer Freddie Young honored the geometry and the intensity of the Dubai desert. With Hidalgo, Fusco's script gives cinematographer Shelly Johnson no space to treat it (or, rather, South Dakota and rural California) with Young's reverence. Beyond that, James Newton Howard's score channels Copland on occasion to underscore our cowboy hero, but that plays up the wrong side of Hopkins' heritage — it's his Sioux roots that continually inform his character, not the bland Americana of his whiskey-plied lasso tricks.

This mishmash of misses defines Hidalgo. Any film that begins with the Sioux massacre at Wounded Knee, travels to Persia for a race and ends with Hopkins releasing a pen of mustangs into the wild feels more like channel-surfing than a movie. No matter how you perceive Hidalgo, it's an embarrassment: Either it's a bogus "true story" ripped from Hopkins' shady journaling, or all of it is true, and this disjointed tale is the best biopic Hollywood could muster.

— Andy Stilp (andy.stilp at gmail dot com)