Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
All this rumpus over a movie about horse racing. First up today, we’ve got Capone’s review of the movie, and it’s pretty brutal, so buckle those seatbelts...
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. Let me begin my discussion of Viggo Mortensen's first non-LORD OF THE RINGS film is quite a few years by listing for you what it is not. HIDALGO is not SEABISCUIT of the desert. SEABISCUIT had an unqualified respect for its human and nonhuman characters and its audience by practically putting us in the saddle and in the middle of the muddy and chaotic racetrack. HIDALGO respects no one and nothing, not its actors, not its characters (animal, vegetable or mineral), and especially not its potential audience. HIDALGO is not a modern day take on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, despite the welcome presence of Omar Sharif as an Arabian prince. Sharif's character is a clown, however, easily distracted by the equivalent of a new shiny toy, everytime he's about to pass down his fiery judgment on someone. HIDALGO also is not anything like more recent THE MUMMY films, despite the over-use in the current trailer of the few special effects shots the film includes. An obviously CGI oversized sandstorm and a swarm of locusts does not an action-adventure make, folks. Now that I've thoroughly explained to you what HIDALGO is not, allow me to tell you briefly what it is: an overlong, boring piece of crap. And to further add insult to injury, the primary reason HIDALGO blows is the King of Middle Earth himself, Viggo Mortensen.
Viggo plays Frank Hopkins, a legendary Pony Express rider who also spends his time competing in long-distance horse races with his faithful mustang Hidalgo. The half-Indian Hopkins witnesses the brutal massacre at Wounded Knee, which scars him emotionally for many years after. He finds himself drunk and performing (barely) in the extremely popular Buffalo Bill Wild West show. Buffalo Bill (nicely played by J.K. Simmons of SPIDER-MAN, but he's only in about two scenes) finds out about what amounts to an X-treme version of long-distance horse racing set in the Arabian desert, an event in which about half of the participants never make it out alive. The prize is massive and the challenge is too great for Hopkins to refuse the offer to compete. The biggest problem with this movie is evident almost from the first time Mortensen speaks. He whispers every line of dialogue so softly, that if there's even a slight problem with the sound system in the theatre you see this in, you'll lose most of what he's saying. He's so friggin' subtle, he's almost invisible, and the strong, silent type act got tired almost immediately.
Sharif plays the Arabian prince who runs the race and pays the prize money. He has feisty daughter named Jazira (Zuleikha Robinson), who isn't allowed due to Muslim law to ride horses (but she does) or talk to any men other than her father (but she does) or engage in a little flirty slap-and-tickle with an infidel (but she does). You get the idea. The other lady in Hopkins' extremely celibate life is Lady Anne Davenport (Louise Lombard), a horse owner who desperately needs her thoroughbred to win the race so she gets exclusive breeding rights to the prince's much-coveted horsey seed. Her overbearing father is played by Malcolm McDowell, who adds nothing to the mix, showing twice in one movie that director Joe Johnson (JURASSIC PARK III, OCTOBER SKY, JUMANJI, THE PAGEMASTER) has no idea what to do with actors over the age of 40.
Despite the out-of-place use of special effects, the high-speed racing, and the quality actors, nothing really lights a fire under the ass of this limp movie. Part of the problem may be that I never believed for one second, despite all the adversity that Hopkins faces, that he was in any danger of dying during this race. And Hopkins, the character, is just way too noble. There are two hot babes hitting on him for most of this film, but he'd rather nuzzle up to his horse. Come on!! A couple weeks ago, I reviewed AGAINST THE ROPES and slammed it for playing fast and loose with facts about a person who is still alive to dispute them. HIDALGO feels the same. They announce at the top of the film that it's based on a true story, but nothing about the story rings true. Praise Allah I don't have to think about this movie anymore until I compile my worst of 2004 list. I challenge anyone to find a bigger disappointment yet this year than HIDALGO.
Capone
So just how fast and free is it with historical accuracy? Well, check out this letter:
Dear Harry,
CuChullaine O'Reilly of The Long Riders' Guild here.
Please allow me to reacquaint myself.
I am one of the Founding Members of The Long Riders' Guild, the world's largest international association of equestrian explorers. The Guild has Members in 30 countries, publishes the world's biggest collection of equestrian travel books, and maintains a website which contains the largest collection of equestrian travel information in human history.
Because of our academic credentials, The Guild was asked by the History Channel to verify the equestrian activities of a deceased American named Frank Hopkins, who was supposedly a great horseman and endurance rider.
Hopkins' remarkable career reputedly began when he became a dispatch rider for the US government on his twelfth birthday in 1877. According to his own account, this Renaissance Man of the Old West went on to work as a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, African explorer, endurance racer, trick rider, bounty hunter, Rough Rider, big game guide, secret agent, Pinkerton detective and star of the Wild West show.
For the past year The Long Riders' Guild has led the largest study of its kind, incorporating the expertise of nearly eighty academic experts in five countries. These experts included Dr. Juti Winchester, the Curator of the Buffalo Bill Cody museum, famed Native American scholar Dr. Vine Deloria Jr., Professor David Dary, emeritus professor and former head of the Gaylord College of Journalism at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Awad Al - Badi, Director of Research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies and Ghalib Al-Quaiti, the last ruling Sultan of Yemen. Their resulting discoveries prove that the elusive equestrian criminal known as Frank Hopkins has finally been tracked down and exposed. During the course of research into Frank Hopkins' life these experts uncovered documentation which proves that Hopkins forged his equestrian credentials, lied about his participation in Old West events, falsely posed as a Native American, stole the identity and accomplishments of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and bragged about riding a horse to death! Moreover, Hopkins' so-called “autobiography” provides ample evidence that he viciously slandered genuine American heroes, calling Buffalo Bill a drunk, Sitting Bull a coward, Zane Grey a poacher and Red Cloud a power-hungry assassin.
And finally, it has now been demonstrated that Hopkins invented his ties to the Lakota nation, lifted his "Indian credentials" from the confirmed Canadian Indian imposter Grey Owl, plagiarized entire passages from the book Black Elk Speaks, and falsely placed himself as a witness to the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
Thus Frank Hopkins plundered history on an extraordinary scale and has now been aptly labeled by historians as having been the biggest Old West fraud and equestrian imposter ever known.
Yet despite the overwhelming mountain of evidence discovered by The Long Riders' Guild and this team of international experts, the Disney channel persisted in broadcasting an advertisement to more than 90 million people during the Super Bowl that claimed the movie Hidalgo is supposedly "based on a true story."
Yet even though the Disney corporation continues to hide behind a cloak of innocence, truth is still the missing component in their counterfeit cowboy movie.
Please read the attached story which will appear in the March issue of Outside magazine in a few days. If you have other questions, or wish to be alerted to further breaking news about this worsening cinematic scandal, then please contact us via this email address. Or you can find the latest news of our on-going investigation at this link!!
Believe me, there is a LOT more coming in the weeks before the movie's release !
In closing, thank you very much for the material you have already posted on your website regarding this movie.
We all want to be entertained, Harry.
What we don't want is for rich Hollywood Caliphs to look us in the eye, play us for suckers, and lie to us by telling saying the Hopkins myth is a "true story."
Best wishes,
CuChullaine
I can’t reprint the entire article here, but I can include a few highlights from “Liar, Liar, Chaps On Fire,” a great piece by Sara Solovitch.
In the Hidalgo version of history, Hopkins was, for starters, a star in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show; a half-Sioux Indian who witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee; a winner of 400 endurance races, including a 2,000 mile epic from Texas to Vermont; and the greatest rider the West had ever known.
In reality, he may have been one of its greatest confidence men. According to a veritable Greek chorus of historians and other experts who have weighed in on what’s been called “the Hopkins hoax,” there never was an annual Ocean of Fire race – or a Texas-to-Vermont showdown – nor any proof that Hopkins even rode well. What’s more, naysayers add, Hopkins’s mother was not a Sioux, he was not at Wounded Knee, and there’s no record of him working for Buffalo Bill. One of the few things known for certain about Hopkins, who was born in either 1865 or 1884 (he lied about his age), is that he dug tunnels for the Philadelphia subway system in 1926. It’s possible that he never even lived out west.
Historical horse epics (think Seabiscuit) certainly have huge box-office potential. But why not just fess up and label Hidalgo pure fiction? “That’s all we want,” says O’Reilly, who sent Disney a pile of exhaustive research debunking Hopkins.
Disney isn’t interested, and neither is its studio Touchstone Pictures, which is releasing the film. For one thing, movie trailers have been trumpeting the “based on a true story” line for months. For another, “there’s no tangible evidence that disproves the story of Hidalgo,” insists a Touchstone source who asks not to be identified.
It’s a good article, well worth picking up. And if you’re still wondering whether or not you should see the film, let me offer up another point of view on the picture:
Got a free ticket to see a premier of 'Hidalgo' last night.
Showed up, and there were two security guards with black blazers and shiny badges and metal detector wands, which when they noticed my phone, asked, "can it take a picture?" Back to the car to drop off the phone, then back to the theater, where after a few minutes wait with about 40 other people in a theater designed for 400+, a nice lady came in to talk to us about the need for all this security was to keep the movie from showing up on the Internet before it was released in the theaters. And then she remarked that one of the security guards had some Night Vision Goggles, and would be scanning the audience at regular intervals looking for "Signs", and that any recording equipment would be confiscated, Police Would Be Called, People Would Be Arrested, etc., and that it would generally ruin your enjoyment of the film, so please don't.
Oy.
I'm wondering how much of a portent of Things To Come for the Theater Of The Future this is.
Other than that, it was a very interesting movie, but I can see why they are trying to keep it out of the "Valentine's Day" market. It seemed to me that it had a very "Lawrence of Arabia" feel to it, and what seemed to be a mostly positive view into many aspects of Arabian culture, plus some rather "Dances With Wolves" moments, especially the incident surrounding the massacre at Wounded Knee. Our flawed hero gets drunk on a regular basis, is horribly dirty and sunburnt, despairs of life, drives on anyway, overcomes in some areas, fails in others, and... well, things work out best for the horse.
All in all, recommended, but ... It is NOT a Flag-Waving pro-american western in the traditional sense, neither is it a "Chick Flick" with Our Hero romancing the Arabian Princess at the Oasis of Love. It is, rather, a tempered story of someone who, with the help of a non-human co-hero, overcomes unbelievable obstacles, some of which are of his own devising, and successfully proves to many that the cover does NOT tell the whole story of this man's life. Or that of his horse.
Aloha mai Nai`a!
Huh. Seems pretty positive. Certainly didn’t call the abomination so many others have. Let’s see if this next reviewer backs up that point-of-view...
Hey Harry, just saw HIDALGO, and as I hadn't seen any reviews up yet, thought you'd be interested...
HIDALGO (or ARAGORN SKYWALKER'S 2-HOUR PODRACE)
Viggo makes a safe career choice by basically rehashing his crowd-pleasing performance as Aragorn, only this time he's wearing a cowboy hat and saying "howdy." Viggo plays half-Indian Mustang enthusiast Frank Hopkins, who, astride his noble steed Hidalgo, has become a living legend as a long-distance horse racer. When his job as a dispatch rider leads to him delivering orders to the Cavalry to "take care" of the Sioux problem at Wounded Knee, he begins a steady alcoholic decline and finds himself scraping out a living in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. Cody (a stiff but somehow vaguely likeable J.K. Simmons) makes the mistake of billing Hidalgo as the world's greatest long-distance racehorse, which attracts the attention of a rather fussy Sheikh (the venerable Omar Sharif), who claims that HIS stallion Al-Hattal is the world's best. The Sheikh's messengers offer a deal: either drop the title, or attempt to back it up by entering the most insane long-distance race in existence, over 3000 miles of inhospitable desert. At the urging of everyone who cares for him or respects who he once was, Hopkins accepts the challenge and it's off to the Middle East.
On the way overseas Hopkins meets the Davenports, a snotty English pair (Malcolm McDowell in throwaway cameo and Louise Lombard mouthing vacantly sinister dialogue with practiced, clipped precision), who are entering their prized mare in the race in the hopes of winning breeding priveleges with Al-Hattel. Upon arrival, Hopkins meets the Al-Hattel's owner and his feisty I'm-as-good-as-a-man daughter Jezira (Zuleikha Robinson). Hopkins is told again and again by virtually every character that he can't possibly win and will most likely die before he even reaches the half-way mark. We all know where this is going.
So finally, Hopkins and Hidalgo are off on a race for their lives, during which they endure sand, storms, sun, storms, subterfuge, and (worst of all) subplots. After miraculously surviving to the halfway point, Hopkins is falsely accused of fooling around with Jezira and is nearly castrated - until an army of bandits swoops down upon the camp and makes off with Jezira and the Sheikh's precious breeding records (containing the secrets of Al-Hattel's bloodline). The pack is led by one of the Sheikh's jealous relatives who believes that Al-Hattel should be his, and ransoms Jezira for the horse. In order to set things right with the Sheikh, Hopkins and Hidalgo must take a time-out from the race and rescue the girl.
Then, it's back to the race, but this lap, there's a treacherous, vengeful Arab out for Hopkins' blood, and that damned Lady Davenport (who has not only failed at getting Hidalgo out of the race but has also failed to seduce the manly Hopkins) will bribe or bully anyone in her way to win. Once again, we all know where this is going.
In the end, it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, you've got some great performances and some solid action. Viggo is fuckin' Viggo - he rules. He turns in a solid, honest, likeable performance that, unfortunately, doesn't deviate too far from what we've seen in LOTR. But that's more the character's fault than his, and he does a pretty good job of selling you on Frank Hopkins. Omar Sharif is thoroughly enjoyable in just the kind of graceful, effortless performance an actor of his stature is entitled to at this point in his career. Robinson is appropriately fiery as Jezira, but not much beyond that. And some of the action scenes are great: Jezira's rescue is a lot of fun, and the scene with the leopards is great (although a little on the short side).
The film's main flaws lie in the script: poor dialogue, awkward pacing, a lame structure - not to mention the predictable ending. The first act is clumsily assembled, and most of the dialogue scenes begin awkwardly, go nowhere, and end abruptly. This trend continues through the rest of the film, though as the race progresses there is less and less talking (thank goodness). Throughout, the film builds tension, climaxes too soon, and then drags a while before gaining sufficient momentum for another half-exciting action bit. And while Jezira's rescue is one of the better parts of the movie, it interrupts what should have been the BEST part of the movie – the friggin' race. And even though the brutality of the race is well-established (we see a few deaths, and none of the survivors come out looking that great), it's like the podrace from Episode I: we all know who's going to win, so what's the point? At least the podrace kept it short; we're stuck in this movie for over 2 hours.
With Joe Johnston in the director's chair, I was hoping for a repeat of THE ROCKETEER – something rousing, fun, and family-friendly. What I got was a film that hits occasionally high points but mostly borrows too heavily from THE MUMMY for thrills LOTR for character. And it's not what I'd call "family-friendly," either. There are beheadings, near castrations, and impalements (both human and equine) that sort of stretch the limits of PG-13 (although by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK -era standards it's ok).
If your a fan of Viggo's (or Sharif's), or like horsey movies (not the kind you find in your dad's underwear drawer), it's not a complete waste of time. But if (like me) you're yearning for a big Hollywood release between now and April that will take the edge of the First Quarter Blues, look elsewhere. Pardon the pun, but this one's pretty lame.
-MonstaZero
Huh. I wish the trailers weren’t so pretty. It makes it hard to accept what I seem to be hearing the most. This one looks like a big messy grab-bag of borrowed influences and historical inaccuracy. I dunno if I’ll be saddling up when it opens. How about you?
"Moriarty" out.
