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BY PEG ALOI
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How many movies give us huge herds of wild mustangs pounding their way across an open plain and harnessed by nothing but wind and sun? This grand scene alone is reason enough to see Joe Johnston’s lush film, which tells the "true story" (now thoroughly debunked by historians) of Matthew Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen, earthy and understated as ever), a half-Sioux cowboy known for winning numerous cross-country races on his trusty dappled horse, the eponymous Hidalgo. A dispatch rider for the US Cavalry, Hopkins witnesses the brutal slaughter at Wounded Knee and turns to drunkenly clowning his way through Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. When a wealthy sheik backs the almost-has-been to ride in the Ocean of Fire, a 3000-mile race across the Arabian desert, he insists on riding the mustang, which is considered a ‘half-breed’ (just like Hopkins!) next to the Bedouins’ pure-bred Arabians. The first American rider ever to enter the race, Hopkins is embroiled in all sorts of intrigue that tests whether he’s an infidel or a man of skill and honor. Okay, it’s a wee bit predictable, but in a swashbuckling Indiana Jones kinda way. Look for Omar Sharif (he’s still got it, ladies) as a haughty king who locks horns with Hopkins. If Seabiscuit was cold, frothy, and pale as a mint julep, this spunky, revisionist tale of a Renaissance man who loves his horse is a gritty, rich serving of cowboy coffee.
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