Quartile rating: 8/10 · 2 ratings
Set in 1890, this is the story of a Pony Express courier who travels to Arabia to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous race for a massive contest prize, in an adventure that sends the pair around the world...
Hidalgo offers an entertaining fish-out-of-water adventure with a genuinely unusual premise — a Pony Express cowboy and his mustang competing in a grueling Arabian endurance race — that gives it modest novelty. The plot is serviceable but formulaic, hitting predictable underdog beats without much surprise. Viggo Mortensen commits to the lead role with charm, but the supporting cast is thinly written and underserves the desert setting. Cinematography captures the sweeping Moroccan landscapes adequately without being particularly inventive. The ending resolves too neatly and sentimentally, undermining whatever tension had been built up during the race, landing as a crowd-pleasing but unearned conclusion.