Set in the days just prior to the Spanish-American War this film details several different characters from across the United States who enlist as volunteers to fight for their nation's honor in Cuba. At least, that is the reason heavily promoted by "William Randolph Hearst" (George Hamilton) in his newspaper articles. The truth of the entire matter being something totally irrelevant to him. Likewise, there were other people with different reasons from wanting a war with the Spanish which included profits from the lucrative sugar markets being one key factor along with national prestige or simply personal fame and glory guiding others on. And it was mostly a mixture of the last couple of attributes that propelled the Secretary of the Navy, "Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt" (Tom Berenger) to resign from his office and request to serve as an officer in an outfit named the Rough Riders. Unfortunately, like so many eager volunteers he is soon to come face-to-face with the grim realities of war. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this mini-series of sorts had some interesting moments here and there which kept my attention for the most part. That being said, however, I should also mention that I didn't quite care for the rather obvious and one-sided appeal to patriotism which completely neglects the Spanish side of the equation as they did everything they could to avoid war with the United States. Likewise, another criticism I have with this film is that there were simply too many characters featured which tended to detract from the story overall with the inclusion of "Stephen Crane" (Adam Storke) being just one example. On a side note, I found it somewhat amusing to see Brian Keith cast as "President William McKinley" in this particular picture when he had previously played "President Theodore Roosevelt" in the movie "The Wind and the Lion" some 22 years earlier. Just an odd bit of trivia. In any case, in spite of these criticisms mentioned earlier, I suppose this two-part mini-series was worth the time spent to watch it and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.
Review of Rough Riders
