2004 Directed by Joe Johnston
Set in 1890, this is the story of a Pony Express courier who travels to Arabia to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous race for a massive contest prize, in an adventure that sends the pair around the world...
One of the most underrated and overlooked films ever in my opinion, Hidalgo is an absolutely fantastic adventure film with a great, engaging plot, beautiful cinematography, terrific action set pieces, phenomenal direction by Joe Johnston and an outstanding lead performance from Viggo Mortensen. This really is one of my favorite films of all time. Definitely check it out.
Despite being a very enjoyable rip-snortin underdog story seemingly ripped from the Golden Age of Hollywood, “Hidalgo” could be the poster child for films based on gigantic lies.
PLOT
The half Native-American Frank Hopkins is slumming it at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show with his faithful horse Hidalgo, when he is approached to compete in the legendary Arabian horse race, the Ocean of Fire, which spans 3,000 miles across a desert, if Hopkins wants to keep the title of "the world's greatest distance horse and rider". Hopkins begrudgingly accepts and enters the competition despite the fact that he may not survive it.
Factually speaking, only two things are true to real life in that summary. There was a man named…
Viggo Mortensen's first film after The Lord of the Rings, Hidalgo follows American cowboy Frank T. Hopkins as he accepts a challenge to participate in a three thousand mile long distance horse race in Arabia. Where Hopkins must face gruelling deserts, fierce competitors and countless other dangerous obstacles if he is to survive.
Despite me having some fond memories of this movie as a kid, my opinion has certainly changed. The plot is an interesting one, but screenwriter John Fusco just bogs it down. The pacing is rather off with there being a few manipulated plot twists to keep the movie running. There is also some annoyingly cliched and heavily enforced story developments, particularly in Hopkins character arc and the…
The finale won me over. The beautiful cinematography and the golden god, Viggo Mortensen pushed me through. This epic adventure film has the combination of the Hollywood Golden Era of filmmaking and 90's melodrama. The story is simple and the characters are familiar archetypes. Knowing little about the true story, this seems more of a family-friendly fairy tale.
This film would not have succeeded without the ethereal presence of Viggo Mortensen. He is magical, even in a mediocre film striving for grandeur.
Not sure what was longer: how long the run time felt or how long that guy was stuck in quicksand.
A bit cheesy and predictable, but still good fun. Some nice action sequences and a strong performance by Mortensen overshadow an on the nose script and a few moments of questionable CGI.
I actually like this film. It is beautifully made, has thrilling sequences and is well acted as well. Superb production values too. So long as you accept this as an adventure fantasy it is great fun and well worth watching. However, as others have pointed out, Frank T. Hopkins was one of the biggest tellers of "tall tales" (liars) in history. Not only did he not do any of the things shown, from being present at Wounded Knee to preforming in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (he may have worked for it briefly but not as a performer, much less a headliner) and he did not win, or compete in any of the 'famous' races that are shown in the film, but none of the races even existed, incluing the long range race shown at the beginning of the film, or the race in Arabia that makes up most of the movie. Enjoy the movie for what it is.
If you really like horses then this movie is evidently much better.
It's not terrible and actually has some really good cinematography. But the movies set up is a race across of dessert that I would have liked to see. But this race is sidelined like three times. This could have been a Mad Max on horses type story but it tries way to hard to instead be the nest Pirates of the Caribbean, but with horses.
its a modern day western reset in the desert it also reminded me of 'lawrence of arabia'
The daring adventure you remember as a kid doesnt hold up...at all...which is really disappointing haha
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