Remember when movies were made with guys in mind, but weren't filled with cartoonish gun battles and explosions and gallons of blood? When a father could take his young son to a matinee and not have to worry about explaining the Farrelly Brothers' jokes about semen? Joe Johnston is obviously reaching back to this time with Hidalgo, a story about a man and his horse.
Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) is a jaded, drunken calvary dispatch rider, son of an officer and a Sioux woman, whose tribe is slaughtered by the military. He's also a long-distance riding champ, together with his mustang Hidalgo. His claim to be the world's best draws him to the Middle East and a 3,000-mile race across the Arabian desert.
(A made-up race, by the way, as was just about everything Hopkins, an East Coast laborer and horse wrangler, ever wrote about himself.)
Challenged by Sheik Riyadh (Omar Sharif), Hopkins and Hidalgo must not only contend with the merciless land but also the machinations of Lady Anne Davenport (Louise Lombard), the evil Katib (Silas Carson) and the romantic intentions of the sheik's daughter, Jazira (Zuleikha Robinson).
In the best heroic tradition, friendships are forged, enemies thwarted and women's lips dodged. Think of a serial Western from the '40s reshot in beautiful color and on dramatic, dazzling locations and you get the general idea.
Woven in all of this are typical American themes of birthright vs. character, free will vs. fate, and the power to reinvent yourself. The depictions of Semitic and Western cultures are true to the period, and it's refreshing in a post-9/11 world to see positive depictions of Arabs and Islam.
Mortensen's stoicism serves him well as Hopkins and Sharif is as charming a screen presence as ever, a mellowed, wiser version of his Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish from Lawrence of Arabia.
Odds are, Hidalgo is only going to appeal to men, not women, and even then, not necessarily every guy. But take a date with you to see it. Consider it payback for when you had to sit through Uptown Girls or Sweet Home Alabama.