HIDALGO
ONLINE REVIEW
Hidalgo
Upholds Cowboy Image
True
to character, a cowboy and his horse carry the day.
by
Cathy Orr |
APHA
photo/Jerry Circelli
|
By the time a movie is released, you’ve seen previews or read
reviews and go to see it with certain expectations. I’m no exception
and went to see Hidalgo expecting a story about a man and his
horse. I wasn’t disappointed. All controversies about the factual
nature of Hidalgo aside, director Joe Johnston, screenwriter
John Fusco, and producer Casey Silver brought a great story to
life, one with a timely—and for the cowboy—traditional message.
If you don’t know already, Hidalgo stars Viggo Mortensen, Zuleikha
Robinson, and Omar Sharif in the story of late 19th-century endurance
and dispatch rider Frank T. Hopkins and his Paint Horse—a mustang—Hidalgo,
who travel to the Middle East on a quest to win the centuries-old
Ocean of Fire, a 3,000-mile horse race across the Arabian Desert.
Competitors are traditionally restricted to the purest lines
of Arabian horses owned by the country’s wealthiest aristocrats,
and when “Cowboy” and his multicolored mustang appear on the
scene, the scene is set for the ultimate confrontation between
good guys and bad guys; right and wrong.
Our first
glimpse of Hopkins is a race between him and his “Little Brother,”
as he calls Hidalgo, and an endurance ride competitor
and his thoroughbred across a Western landscape. Hidalgo overtakes
the “purebred” with ease, setting the stage for a theme that
will resonate within Hopkins own heart, as he moves from witnessing
the slaughter of his Sioux kin at Wounded Knee to
work in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, in which he’s compelled
to hide his Native heritage from a public with mixed passions
towards the Indian: hate or fascination.
As
it turns out, the reputation for winning races follows the
cowboy-horse partners to the Wild West Shows, where an agent
for a wealthy Middle Eastern Sheik invites Hopkins and Hidalgo
to enter the Ocean of Fire and race against the Sheik’s purebred
Arabians and a hundred other horses of noble heritage. Esteemed
lowly with little hope of finishing, let alone winning, Hopkins
and Hidalgo are put to their mettle in a less-than-covert competition
between what in the local culture is considered pure versus defiled
and on a more personal level, between believers and “an infidel.”
Throughout the long grueling race, trials and tribulations—from
locusts to leopards, an unscrupulous lady and her hired thugs,
the desert’s naturally harsh climate and desert derelicts consumed
with desire to win the race at any cost—beset the American duo,
forcing Hopkins to make difficult choices, most between winning
and what to many, on the surface anyway, might appear as “losing.”
RICHARD
CARTWRIGHT / ©DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 But
beneath the façade
of overt decisions rest more profound dilemmas with moral
implications: choices between selflessness
and survival, between self-exoneration and righteousness; between
self-sacrifice and self-aggrandizement. In typical cowboy fashion,
without hesitation or long speeches, Hopkins chooses the narrow road
and makes his motives clear to those trying to weaken his resolve
or make him weak.
And then there’s Hopkins’ Sioux heritage. In the process of
being a cowboy, Hopkins realizes a new self-respect for who he
is: a man with both Indian and white blood flowing in his veins,
with no reason to hide either. In conquering the overwhelming
odds against him, Hopkins comes to terms with his Indian self,
without discarding or devaluing his cowboy heritage, and ends
up earning respect, as well as self-respect.
Particularly
noteworthy is the fact that at no point in his predicaments
is Hopkins willing to compromise the bond between
him and Hidalgo, and the mustang pony makes no small contribution
to the film’s emotional quotient. His own heroics and relationship
with Hopkins communicate so clearly to Hopkins—and the audience—that
commitment involves self-sacrifice, courage, and conservation
of the Cowboy Way.
Without revealing the highlights of the plot, let’s just say
Hidalgo has his way, but Hopkins is never just following along.
He portrays the values of every true cowboy, values intertwined
with the heart and soul of his horse and the country he calls
home. For the cowboy, right’s always been right, and wrong’s
always been wrong, and no matter where or in what time a man
lives, that will never change, win or lose.
Click here
to read American Cowboy magazine's feature story on the movie
Hidalgo! |
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Hidalgo stars
Viggo Mortensen and Paint Horse “TJ,” were inseparable
during the Hollywood premiere of the film on March 1. Mortensen
now owns the horse. |
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