Bring a canteen: ‘Hidalgo’ leaves viewers stuck in the desert

Blake Hinton / Reviewer

We are in need of epic films. It seems that in these days with the cost of movie making rising, few studios want to produce a film on an epic scale. The few times they do, like with the film “The Four Feathers,” they come out plodding or stilted. It looks as if the days of the David Lean film “Lawrence of Arabia” are over. This weekend another epic film came out, “Hildago.” Much like a David Lean film, it is filled with grand landscapes and vistas. The only problem is that it is unintentionally hilarious sometimes and excruciatingly boring all the time.

Apparently, this film is based on a true story, but recently its accuracy has come under fire. The film is about true-life hero and distance rider Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen). This long film mainly concerns Frank competing in the “Ocean Of Fire,” a long distance survival race across the Arabian Desert. Nobody, of course, believes in him in the beginning, as he is riding a Mustang. To the other Arabian riders, this kind of horse was considered impure.

In real life this has to be a fascinating race, but the audience is given little sense of that. Most of the plot deals with random subplots and tangents as Frank races across the desert. This includes such silly subplots as an evil rival tribal leader who tries to sabotage Frank’s chances in the race.

Of course, Frank overcomes all these random obstacles and races toward the finish line. The ending won’t be spoiled here, but it’s far from a great surprise.

Without a doubt, this is one of the cheesiest movies to come out in a long time. Most of the dialogue is either silly or unbelievable, and therefore causes many unintentional laughs. As far as the characters go, it seems that all of them were picked out of a grade- Z adventure serial. None of the characters have any depth except their one-note characteristic. In fact, all of them could be summed up in one sentence.

All the good guys are good and all the bad guys are bad.

Of course, the movie tries to twist this up with the eventual betrayal of one of Frank’s friends. Sadly, these “twists” are telegraphed a mile away.

Probably the worst part of this film is how unbelievably boring it is. While one may get some chuckles out of the silly dialogue and characters.

It’s hard to believe the makers of this film could create a movie about racing across the Arabian desert with all kinds of dangerous pitfalls boring, but they somehow found a way. It doesn’t help that the movie seems to take its sweet time to start the race. Before that we meet all the clichéd characters, like the comic relief sidekick who pops up occasionally as Frank’s assigned servant. The movie is only about two hours and 15 minutes, but it feels so much longer.

The acting is decent. Mortensen has already proved in “Lord of The Rings” that he is a fine actor. Here he brings some of his presence, but all the actors, good or bad, are yoked with such limited characters. In the end, the only thing “Hidalgo” has to offer is beautiful vistas of the desert. Sadly, for the filmmakers, scenery doesn’t make a film, especially one this bad.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo!Movies.com

Disney’s “Hidalgo” attempts to re-create a “Lawrence of Arabia” atmosphere with vast Arabian desert scenes. Viggo Mortensen of “The Lord of the Rings” stars in the film.