Hidalgo

Viggo Mortenson - you loved him in Lord of the Rings as Aragorn. And possibly that trilogy has gone to his head because now he seems to think he's John Wayne.

Our impression of him as an actor is that he normally would be playing a bad guy. He just doesn't really fit the super good guy mold, but that's okay. In this one he's a Pony Express rider. The movie is set in 1890, and we're still not real sure if he's a great guy who happens to have a great horse, of if he's just riding on top of a really great horse. Either way, the horse is the star in this movie.

Our guy goes to Saudi Arabia to compete in the most brutal horse race in the world. Arabs who were born and raised there die in the desert, but our cowboy doesn't. One would ask "Huh?" right about here (yeah I know, we did) but Viggo has obviously read the script! He doesn't flinch. Ever.

Our favorite kind of action hero is in the mold of Jackie Chan - the guy who is battling his butt off but he looks scared, or worried, or at least concerned! We don't tend to like the guys who are overly confident and not even concerned by what's going on around them - the obvious "I've read the script and don't need to act" confidence. Viggo falls into this second category.

One has to ask why this one and Secondhand Lions and a few others recently are focusing on the middle east. When we were battling Russia we had tons of Russian spy movies - the propaganda machine definitely reaches to the movies. The Arabs in this movie really seemed like the westernized "Kinder Gentler" Arabs, and given the time period it just doesn't fit. They seem also to need the wisdom and skill from the United States to set them straight - another piece that just doesn't fit.

On the positive side - this movie definitely addresses good issues such as slavery, mistreatment of humans, and how one should embrace ones ancestry and not shy away from being what we are. It shows painfully how the Native Americans were mistreated and how politicians spin things. There is a bit of a character arc where our hero does grow alittle, but you have to watch closely for it or you may miss it.

Omar Sharif plays the Sheikh and is wonderful to watch. He was a pleasure, possibly that and the horse are worth the price of admission alone. The man who plays the princess' slave is definitely a stand out also (forgive me I don't know his name - if anyone reading this does, feel free to email and and I'll correct this). He fought great, acted great and was one of the better performances.

We found ourselves squirming in our seats as it seemed to drag a bit.

Overall rating - 3 - Fun, without the exclamation point.