One of the legion of Disney sports films -- the allegedly factual story of a long-distance Bedouin horse race across the Ocean of Fire to Damascus -- feeds the current hunger (to put it as crudely as it merits) to kick some Arab butt. The titular mustang, the lone American entry in the field, mirrors the components of his native land: horse of the Red Indian, descended from Spain, of mixed blood, and subjected to a bit of thoroughbred (or Old World) snobbery. His rider, the legendary Pony Express courier Frank T. Hopkins (a mumbly Viggo Mortensen), is himself a half-breed, who otherwise perfectly matches the profile of the American invader and conqueror of The Last Samurai: a drunken participant in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, a tormented soul eaten by guilt over the massacred Sioux at Wounded Knee, and a rakish blade who effortlessly cuts through cultural barriers and in particular the facial veil of a sheik's daughter named Jazira ("Why do I feel that you truly see me when others do not?"). Spurred on by the blustery music of James Newton Howard, horse and rider outrun a computer-generated desert tsunami (curse of The Mummy), dodge a couple of cartoon leopards (sons of Gladiator), and tilt into a three-way photo finish after a race of three thousand miles. Fact-check, anyone? With Omar Sharif and Zuleikha Robinson; directed by Joe Johnston. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.