susankaychavezlac I like Tom Berenger- In fact, I like him a lot, especially in his "Sniper" series of movies. But "Rough Riders" is the biggest crock of manure since......well, good taste and civility prevent me from telling you since when, lol We have a combined force of 25,000 American Rough Riders, armed with Gatling Guns, and Krag-Jorgensen bolt action rifles, with 5 round magazines, AND Cuban insurgent Mambis troops going up against 800 ill-fed, isolated Spanish infantrymen in San Juan Hill. Pretty much a similar scenario to what happened in Santiago de Cuba bay, with Spain's wooden ships facing off against two (2) flotillas of (then) modern American battleships made of steel.We have the Yellow Journalists William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer to thank for this contrived "war" in which we lost 1,500 American Rough Riders killed in the charge on San Juan Hill (and an unknown number of wounded) and of course, a number of killed and wounded among the Cuban insurgent Mambi troops. Not just the men we lost in the short engagements, but the 5,000 men we lost due to YELLOW FEVER.The USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, due to an ignition of COAL DUST. The Yellow Journalists Hearst and Pulitzer, contrived fake stories blaming Spain for the explosion and incited the American public and the William McKinley Administration into declaring war on Spain. Spain, eager to avoid a war against the United States, for which she was ill-prepared to undertake, AGREED TO ALL OUR DEMANDS. But that was apparently not good enough, and the rest is now history.I'm a United States Army Disabled and Honorably Discharged Veteran with 10 years' service. The bravery and training of American troops is unquestioned, but this shameful episode in our country's history should not be 'REVISED' by Hollywood to give the public the idea we went up against fearsome odds. A website dedicated to the German-Scottish teenage Princess (born in Scotland) Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena of Battenberg says it all in much fewer words and with greater eloquence.See It's all around the middle of the website where the Spanish-American war is discussed. No spoiler alert is needed. We ALL know how the Spanish-American war ended, lol.

BillyGL88 Wish this great film had made it to the Big Screen! Absolutely the best film ever made on Teddy Rosevelt.Great for the whole family in my opinion!It not only documents his life... it also presents his great ideals and character as very 'Presidential' and to be desired. The same cannot be said of all our Presidents.The depiction of the battle for San Quan Hill was one of the best war documentaries I've ever seen.An all-star cast helps make this a classic movie.I will get this movie for my collection for sure.I will recommend it to all our family and friends.-BGLewis of Spring Hill, FL

rudge49 This is one of my all time favorite movies, I actually bought the commercially produced tape of it. I am a Living Historian/Reenactor, I do a Spanish American War impression, I read everything I can about the SA War, and these people got it right. Some over-dramatization of course, playing with the facts. The Spanish did not have machine guns at Santiago, if they had, the battle would have turned out of little different-look at the havoc machine guns cause in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 then in WWI. But it looks great to see "our boys" valiantly charging up hill against them (nice of the Spanish to be such lousy shots). The U.S. officer in charge of the Gatling guns was Lt. John J. Parker, about 35 (promotions were slow back then) and he was know as "Blackie" for his luxurious black beard. William Shafter had a full head of hair, a mustache but no beard, the actor portraying him is bald with a beard, plus he really didn't do justice to Shafter's corpulence (he weighed over 300lbs). And the scenes where the Spanish soldiers all have left handed rifles and the Maxims are feeding from the left, later when the Rough Riders capture one Roosevelt says "I can see it feeds from the right"-poor film editing. And the Spanish had no need of German advisers, they had a long and proud military tradition. Also the scene where Roosevelt tells his men to "kill the German"-TR ordering a prisoner to be murdered? I think not.Against these perhaps minor criticisms (hey, I am have taught history at a community college) I will state that the uniforms and equipment of the troops on both side are correct, the depiction of black soldiers in the battle is correct-all four of the Army's black regiments were in Cuba, the 9th & 10th Cavalry, the and 25th Infantry, the Rough Riders were brigaded with the 10th Cavalry. Mostly importantly, the film captures the mood, the mannerisms, the atmosphere of the time, the idea of the sons of New York's wealthiest families so eager to get into the fight that they will serve as enlisted men, and the fact that the War of 1898 ended many of the divisions left over from the war of 1861-1865 and in a sense we went from being the "United States" to the "United States of America".

carflo I think Teddy would have approved. Sometimes modern movies present the past through modern beliefs and sensibilities. In fact, more often than not directors present the past in this manner. Rough Riders is an honest movie that lets the past speak for itself with no apologies. Teddy Roosevelt and his rather diverse band of recruits believed that they were going to Cuba to save the Cuban people from an evil and exploitive Spanish colonial government. Tom Berenger completely buries himself in the character of Teddy Roosevelt without the parody that often accompanies the part. He is surrounded by a cast of excellent actors from Gary Busey as General Joe Wheeler to George Hamilton as William Randolph Hurst. Sam Elliot, Francesco Quinn, and Brad Johnson are fictional characters used to represent the range of ordinary men who followed Roosevelt. Chris Noth, Holt McCallany, and James Parke are the wealthy scions of the Wadsworth, Fish and Tiffany families. I especially liked Nick Chinlund as Frederick Remington and Adam Storke as Stephen Crane. Except for Hurst and Wheeler, these men went into the war dreaming of honor and adventure. They saw themselves as heroes going off to save the Cuban people. They were men who quoted Shakespeare's Henry V "we happy few" and believed it implicitly. The director, John Milius, and his cast of fine actors do honor to themselves and their professions by allowing these naive young men to speak for themselves and their world.