I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Dreadfully Boring

Better Late Then Never

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

In 1898 the US gets involved in the Cuba- Spanish war and an American forms a cavalry regiment called the "Rough Riders". That man was future United States president Theodore Roosevelt and he and his men come under siege in a tense battle. Sprawling three hour epic made for T V featuring a lesser known war in American history. The first half of the film is slow and bitty, and Tom Berenger is rather irritating as Roosevelt, coming over as a little too eccentric. However the second half of the film is good, rousing stuff with a long battle and Berenger actually improves. Sam Elliott as always is dependable and Brian Keith looks ill in his last role. Overall a good film. 8/10.

On the 99th anniversary of the Spanish American war and the most famous land battle of that brief said war, John Millius wrote and directed a stirring tribute to the First Volunteer Cavalry. The group has come down to us in history as the Rough Riders and its organizer and second commander became President of the United States on the strength of one afternoon's very bloody work at a place called Kettle Hill, better known as San Juan Hill.Tom Berenger makes a splendid Theodore Roosevelt. He captures all the passion in him, the brilliance as well as the bumptiousness. Some may find Roosevelt too super-patriotic, even too racist in some regards. It was a different time a century ago. Roosevelt was also a man who would stand for nothing less than the United States being nothing less than number one.In his own way he pioneered integration, he was of the patrician class with roots going all the way back to Dutch New Amsterdam. But his Rough Riders as you see come from all walks of life, from society kids to even western outlaws.Milius did his research well for the most part. Ileane Douglas whose family pedigree includes grandparents Melvyn and Helen Gahagan Douglas, plays the ever patient Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. She loves her husband, but is able to say an occasional 'now Theodore' to put the brakes on his enthusiasm getting the better of him. Rough Riders marks the farewell performance of Brian Keith as President William McKinley who Roosevelt said had the back of a 'chocolate éclair'. That was one of Roosevelt not so admirable qualities, his failure to see merit the other point of view had. McKinley was a wounded Civil War veteran who saw action as a young man in places like Antietam. He was not a man to rush lightly and foolhardily into a decision for war, knowing far more than TR at the time of what war can cost.My favorite in the film is Sam Elliott as Yavapai County, Arizona sheriff Bucky O'Neill who joined the Rough Riders and was in charge of molding them into a unit. This is definitely one of Elliott's finest moments on screen.The last Rough Rider died in 1975. I wish some of them had been around to see this fine film about a young America and what some of the best and brightest of that generation did. The politics behind the Spanish American War are debatable and dubious at best, but the heroism of our soldiers is unquestioned.

this is an excellent film that most have never heard of because it was made for TV (turner)and never shown in the theater.not much to add except that the film sheds light on the short and little known 1898 Spanish-American war which while trumped up by the media(newspaper publisher William Randolph Hurst played superbly by George Hamilton)catapulted the up until then isolationist united states on to the world stage for the first time and which gave the united states control of Spanish territories around the globe-Cuba,Puerto Rico the Philippines,wake island,Guam and the Marshall islands.and allowing the united states to flex its military might globally for the first time.there are some historical inaccuracies(such as the imperial German army advisor's aiding the Spanish, director john milius also made the turn of the century imperial Germans the bad guys in his 1975 film THE WIND AND THE LION in which Brian Keith played teddy Roosevelt as president during an international incident resolved by his big stick diplomacy-sending the marines.if you liked rough riders see the wind and the lion.

Tom Berenger is a superb actor, and I think his talent is often overlooked. He was funny, affecting, and ennobling in "Major League," a comedy about a misbegotten baseball team. He was chilling, on a knife's-edge (a one-man Hitchcock plot - no way to tell where he was, or what he might do, or what he knew... but no mistaking the motivation and emotion, either... indescribably human, he was) in "Betrayed." His performance there was such that one hated and feared him from the very start, but ended up praying that he would not be slain. I heard little about his effectiveness in either case. And yet, there was, of course, his screen-shattering performance as Sgt. Barnes in the brilliant, alligorical, and hard-hitting Oliver Stone production, "Platoon." He won plaudits for that one, and well-deserved ones.In this one,"Rough Riders," he is given a juicy, meat-filled slice of adolescent Americana, to play - an incorrigible and inimitable American hero, the irrepressible Theodore Roosevelt. Rather than restraining himself, or attempting to portray TR as - well, as an adult - Berenger seems to let his performance carry itself, unconsciously. He is as over-the-top as TR himself. This is, at all times, under a thin, barely-controlled layer of respectability, very similiar itself to the state in which TR himself seemed to be born. TR's life, much of the time, was a bouncy, swashbuckling melodrama - and Berenger plays all of this to the hilt, and with the necessary controlled-abandon. He might be critisized for over-acting if it wasn't for the plain fact that this is, in fact, the way TR behaved. And anyone who cares to witness Mr. Berenger's other performances (including his most recent roll, as a delightfully dour and cynical sheriff, on USA's "Peacemakers") can see, his sensitivity to the depth of the characters he plays is extraordinary - one can almost pity him, in this case, for choosing to play a man who himself embodied unbelievable melodrama.Suffice to say, the entire picture is worth watching, just to see bully old Teddy back again, alive and in the flesh, trying to start a war, and then trying to fight and win that war... Berenger brings it all to life, brilliantly. He shouts "bully!" with enthusiasm, he studiously prepares several pairs of spectacles for his expedition to Cuba, we see him trying to improve his piping, asthma-riddled voice, the better to command his soldiers - and, later, we see him fall quite out of his chair at the jest of a comrade, declaiming, "I was overcome with mirth!" Such scenes will overcome the viewer with mirth, as well - but a knowing mirth.Having said that, this film's best moment is near the beginning, and it involves Illeana Douglas, who plays Teddy's wife, Edith, with a healthy dash of long-suffering tolerance, as if she would leave the set if she could just quit loving the man she'd married. Her defense of the macho (but defenseless) TR in the face of the French is played off terrifically. She comes across as precisely what Edith herself, in fact, was - a woman who had long since resigned herself to the hell-for-leather forays of her headstrong husband... and she defends him with the ruthlessness of a woman who knows that no foreigner will ever understand the boundless Americanism (or worldy childishness) of her husband.This is not a brilliant film, but it is an entertaining one. The battle scenes are well done, but, aside from what I mentioned above, the real fun in the picture is in the "boot-camp" scenes. A well-cast and icily forbidding Sam Elliott, along with the silent, brooding threat-in-being of David Midthunder, makes these scenes more interesting than the typical military drill-sergeant fare. By the end of the training process, even those watching the movie are longing for the approval of the aloof and mysterious Midthunder - who, in a nicely balanced final scene, explains himself in a way that banishes mystery, conjures comradeship, and evokes sympathy.One other character commends attention here. Gary Busey plays the ancient Confederate General Joseph Wheeler - a hero of the Civil War (for the South, anyway). Like Berenger, his acting is sure to be termed overdone, excepting the reality that his character was, in fact, a hell-for-leather, horse-riding, Yankee-skewering madman... And there is great pleasure in the watching of Busey bringing this nutty semi-senile General to life. He demands assurances from the President, and we see him repeatedly mistake the Spanish, who we Americans were fighting in this war, for "Yankees." (In the end, the addled, overweight, and over-enthusiastic General settles upon the phrase "them Yankee Spaniards," when referring to the enemy...) It is a fun portrayal of a man whose time has past, but who refuses to acknowledge the fact. Busey's Wheeler is so wound up in the sound of the guns, that he loses all reason, becomes delirious, and yet, beneath it all, hangs inadvertantly to the vestiges of heroism. I think there is little choice but to root for the ill-guided but irresistable General. Having such a melodramatic icon on screen with a viviedly-created TR is almost too much fun to bear. There is humour and adventure enough for all, in this. In the end, I recommend this picture for the terrific performances of Tom Berenger and Illeana Douglas, as well as the historical accuracy of much of it. I have left out, in these comments, sympathetic and effective performances by Chris Noth and Holt McCallany, who help make the movie go, and serve to tie the audience into the volunteer soldier idiom. Francesco Quinn brings patriotism, duty, and honour to life - unexpectedly (at least, to Anglo-Americans who know nothing of Latin qualities) in the guise of a love-struck Latin-American. His character, I think, speaks the most towards what modern soldiers might say, that we "all fight for each other." Quinn elevates these platitudes into reality, as the film portrays him carrying out his values, making decisions according to a code he had initially resisted in the interests of staying with his sweetheart. I have also left out Brad Johnson, who's trite "bad-man who learns honour" roll is, nevertheless, well-played. I could write much more... alas, just watch it, and see. A lot of fun. And very, very well done.