Nothing particularly remarkable from Joe Johnston's film Hidalgo: Chasing in the Desert / Hidalgo, 2004, frankly, did not expect. Well, the usual cowboy movie about a good, noble cowboy who defeats everyone. But it was not as simple as it might seem at first glance. As they write, the story was based on a real character - the best
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Nothing particularly remarkable from Joe Johnston's film Hidalgo: Chasing in the Desert / Hidalgo, 2004, frankly, did not expect. Well, the usual cowboy movie about a good, noble cowboy who defeats everyone. But it was not as simple as it might seem at first glance. As they write, the story was based on a real character - the best cowboy of the late 19th century in the Wild West Frank Hopkins, who was invited to participate in equestrian competitions in the Arabian desert. However, different sources hold different opinions about him, some argue that all his stories are fictions. But, in principle, the film is not documentary, so the realism of the story in this case does not matter. Frank Hopkins was a mixed-blooded man, his mother was the daughter of a Lakota Sioux tribal leader, and his whole life was associated with horses. What's interesting about the movie? The director in this case rather sided with the Indians, the Americans are not depicted in a complementary spirit at all - they ruthlessly kill the Indians and take all their horses from them. People in general are not very good there and few of them are decent, except that the main character, who clearly shows only one vice - he is a drunkard. In the process, if one may put it this way (I have a rather negative attitude towards all kinds of competitions, including especially those involving animals), we can also observe Eastern and English insidiousness. Of course, everything is depicted somewhat simplified, but clearly. In the end, although with great difficulty, Hopkins defeats his rivals, with the money he receives, he buys American Indian horses and releases them to the wild, like his remarkable horse. Viggo Mortensen starred in the lead role, as the Arab sheikh Omar Sharif, both good. In the role of T.J.’s horse, several horses were shot, all of them wonderful, with one of them Mortensen became so friends on the set that after they were finished he bought it. So in general, this film is primarily about friendship - a man and his horse.
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