Hidalgo: DVD, Blu-ray Movie Review (2008)

A bloated oater, long in the tooth.

Set in the 1890s, this epic horse drama is about Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen), the real-life Pony Express rider whose real life isn’t explored here. It’s fictionalized, so much so that the truth is stretched so far, it snaps.

Of course, that wouldn’t matter much if the movie had been consistently entertaining, which it isn’t.

Named after Frank’s heroic mustang, “Hidalgo” finds Hopkins taking on a hive of unseemly types led by Omar Sharif’s Sheikh Riyadh and racing them on one massive, 3,000-mile journey across the Saudi Arabian desert.

In spite of the sandstorms, the locusts, the wildcats, the kidnappings and a host of other dangers, "Hidalgo" isn’t content to just offer robust entertainment.

It also wants to strike serious undertones and form elements of a drama. That’s where it tries to have it all--and that’s where it fails to do so.

Rated PG-13. Grade: C