I started out almost wanting to hate this movie. To begin with it’s not my kind of thing. I didn’t like Gladiator much (the fact it won all those Oscars makes me seeth, at least), I don’t expect to like Troy, and though Hidalgo turns out to be more a Western than an Epic, it seemed to me they were marketing it a little too much like those movies.

For maybe the first half, the movie is exactly as I expected. But once you meet the horse, Hidalgo, and the big race is in full swing, and all the racial agenda stuff is out on the table (after a short while of thinking, “this is all just too obvious,”) I found myself steadily falling in love with it to its Spirit-like ending. I guess it’s like I said when I reviewed Seabiscuit, I guess I just love horses. The reason I probably never think about it a lot is because there’s next to no chance I’ll ever get to own one (well that and, I’ve hardly been successful keeping hamsters, horses would be a hell of a leap :-p). But show me a horse being cool and, well, horselike, on film, and I get goosebumps. Something happens towards the end of this movie – you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it – and from that moment on, I wanted Hidalgo to win so bad. For me it was one of the best film moments of the year, ‘cos with Viggo Mortensen alone, I didn’t really give a damn if they won or “lost honourably” or whatever.

The whole racial agenda is a little obvious, and the times I didn’t like the movie were the times it seemed like it was all for altering people’s beliefs. Now at times I can go along with this, because some people have really stupid beliefs. But they’re still beliefs, and when it comes, for example, to a certain character wanting to die in this movie, I thought the whole message got a little ridiculous. This, however, then turns into a story point (the same character later rescues our heroes), so I kind of got over it. Overall, I wound up loving the symbolism too. There’s some kind of complex imagery in this movie – Mortensen picks up a symbol at Wounded Knee in a flashback that opens the movie; he carries it to Arabia around his neck where his assistant assumes it is the symbol of his homeland (“It’s good as any,” Mortensen explains); and (Glory Be!) in the big triumphant scene towards the end, instead of a big American flag waving, it’s a flag made by the assistant with this Native American symbol on it. I kind of liked that, even if it’s a little extremely symbolic.

I love horses, or, I love horse movies, at least. Consider that when you consider my totally recommending this movie :-p

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