You'll Cheer 'Til You're Hoarse (Of Course, Of Course)
The Film
The weird thing is, I never knew I cared about horses at all, but something happened in recent years as I found myself swept up in the kinda-true stories of Seabiscuit and director Joe Johnston's Hidalgo. Working from a script by John Fusco, Viggo Mortensen brings an aw-shucks charm and dignified sadness to his first post-Lord of the Rings starring role. As long-distance rider Frank T. Hopkins, he tangles both with the demons of his past and (a half-blooded Native American, he delivered the fateful orders to the U.S. troops at Wounded Knee) and the treachery of his present as he competes in the most grueling race in the world, across the Arabian desert, justly called “the ocean of fire.”
This being History-via-Hollywood, the outcome of a 3,000-mile race is determined in the final few hundred yards, but it's pretty hard not to become caught up in the fierce competition as the horses hit a full gallop and the James Newton Howard musical score kicks in. There's also an ambush, a rescue, a romance. Yes, Viggo does momentarily wrestle a guy, but fully clothed this time.
The Picture
By and large this is a pure, highly filmic presentation, and a great improvement over the DVD. The magnificent scenery of the American West is rendered in exquisite detail. The move to the desert brings beautiful blue skies, fiery red sunsets, and every shade of sand imaginable, with individual grains discernible. Only minor compression artifacting is evident, even in smoky night scenes where ample picture detail is effortlessly displayed in the 2.40:1 frame. My one mini-gripe is that essential subtitles (places, dates) are in a slightly harsh yellow video font, which can register as a bit of a disparity to the eye against the film.
The Sound
The default soundtrack here is a 5.1-channel uncompressed PCM (48 kHz/24-bit) that is consistently clean and natural in everything from intimate whispered dialogue scenes to big exterior action sequences. Hoofbeats carry an appropriate thunder, and although not specifically chaptered, the swarm of locusts one hour and 35 minutes in starts with some quick directional effects followed by outstanding high frequencies. It's fine audio if not showpiece, likely a deliberate decision during the filmmaking process not to go over the top.
The Extras
This Blu-ray successfully ports over the two brief extras from the DVD, in standard definition. The first is "Sand & Celluloid," a behind-the-scenes featurette that teases us with occasional tidbits (over 800 different horses were needed for filming) but can only cram so much information into a mere nine minutes. Hidalgo utilized the unequalled resources of George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic special effects house, Johnston's former employer: Why no how-they-did-it secrets of the sandstorm, or anything else? And for that matter, why no commentary from Johnston or Fusco? Fusco does appear in the 21-and-a-half-minute "America's First Horse" documentary with movie clips, a genuinely interesting look at the history of the Spanish Mustang breed here in the United States.
Final Thoughts
Hidalgo is at once a fun film with lots of adventure but substantive too as it explores the plight of the Native American and the brutal realities of a contest where only the strong and the fortunate survive. The high-definition master certainly enhances the experience, and by the end you too will likely have a newfound appreciation for the majestic mustang.
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