It's another movie about a man and his animal. This time it's a horse, which is much better than a whale. "Hidalgo" is a story about Frank Hopkins and his horse Hidalgo, who enter the great race, a 3000 mile horse race across Arabia, Iraq and Jordan. Although, I have a few problems with some small things, overall, I highly recommend this as a movie for you and the family.

The story begins in the American west in the later 1800's. Hopkins, played by Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings trilogy), is a pony express rider transferring dispatches between the US Army. He ends up delivering the fateful message which leads to the Wounded Knee Massacre. After that, he falls in to a drunken stupor, because he is part Native American and ends up working for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show.

While there, he is proclaimed to be the fastest horse rider in the world. This title insults Sheikh Riyadh, who sponsors the great Arabian race, and challenges Hopkins to enter the race. The carnival people pay the entry fee for Hopkins, and he is off to the desert.

I like this movie because of Mortensen's performance and the general story, which is in essence a chase. The sub-plots are not original, and I would question if some of them were necessary. While I enjoyed the tension created by Hopkins, as he is an 'infidel' attempting to win the race against all of the Arabs, particularly Prince Bin Al Reeh, played by Said Taghmaoui, the attempt by big bad English women Lady Anne Davenport, played by Louise Lombard, to kill Hidalgo and steal the race just to have her horse mate with the Prince's horse, the best at the time, I found to be unnecessary. However, since this was based on a true story, it may have happened. I feel the movie could have done without that sub-plot, but hey, who the hell am I?

I also did not like the inner struggle Hopkins had identifying himself as a Native American. We see it all too often in movies, and because of it, the identity crisis--however true to the story it may be--drags the movie down a little bit.

It's not the fault of the writer. It's the fault of all the other bulls**t writers who have made it a standard in Native American oriented movies. The writer John Fusco, who also wrote "Thunderheart," and director Joe Johnston (Field of Dreams, October Sky), who has done some bad movies like "Jurassic Park III" and "Jumanji," do a commendable job and should feel good about their achievement.

The only other small problem I had was while in Arabia, the participants of the race kept referring to the deserts of Iraq, Syria and Jordan as places where racers and their horses die. However, in 1890, Iraq was not called Iraq since it was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, modern day Turkey. For that matter, so was Syria and Jordan. However, I suspect most people don't know this, wouldn't know this and don't care. I feel, if we are going to be basing this movie on a true story, then we should stick to the geographic details.

However, I really did like this film. The end of the race between Hopkins, the Prince and Lady Davenport's horse is really exciting. This is a good movie for kids to watch, but has some mild violence which may not be suitable for the under 8 group. Everyone else should watch it.

Brian - the Naked Gun