Rough Riders

No movies last week, until I finally came across a DVD of John Milius's made for TV epic Rough Riders (1997) yesterday. It's a truly great movie (for what it is), and one wishes only that it could have been released in theaters. A companion piece to Milius's earlier The Wind and the Lion, it this time places Theodore Roosevelt (here portrayed by Tom Berenger) as the central character - or a central character, rather, as the film is largely an ensemble piece, showing a truly ragtag collection of Americans coming together in a war which finally healed a nation still torn by racial, ethnic, religious and regional lines, thirty years after the Civil War.

The film portrays the adventures of Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War of 1898, an imperial contest which established America as a pre-eminent world power. With Spain engaging in a bloody and brutal repression of rebellions in Cuba and the Philippines, the American press led by William Randolph Hearst (George Hamilton) and ambitious politicians like Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (Tom Berenger) and Secretary of State John Hay (R. Lee Ermey) are urging war, although it seems many are doing so for the sake of war itself. When the USS Maine is destroyed in Havana harbor, war is finally declared, and Roosevelt organizes a crack regiment, made up of everything from patrician New Yorkers and Army regulars to frontier gutter trash to outlaws like Henry Nash (Brad Johnson). After the usual training, and a decidedly chaotic transport process, the Rough Riders - commanded not by Roosevelt, but by Colonel Leonard Wood (Dale Dye) - finally arrive in Cuba, under the command of ex-Confederate General Joseph Wheeler (Gary Busey), but bereft of horses, artillery and proper supplies - and swamped by a poor chain-of-command, disease, and determined Spanish resistance. After a series of chaotic skirmishes, the campaign reaches a climax at the San Juan Heights, as Roosevelt and his men charge to glory against well-entrenched, better-armed Spanish regulars.

If The Wind and the Lion was a mourning of the passing of traditional masculinity, then Rough Riders is as much a celebration of it - while also contemplating its consequences. These two movies are companion pieces, not just due to the prominence of Roosevelt, but for their portrayal of a young, idealistic, untested and still rather amoprhous nation struggling to emerge into the world. The film shows, better than just about any I can think, of the affects of militarism (bordering perhaps of fascism) on a national character, where war is a desirable act - a game, an intellectual exercise, a test of manhood, an economic or political necessity - but above everything else, it's an event. Only in the aftermath, after thousands of deaths, does anyone ask what it's all about or if it was worth it. But it sure as hell was something, even if seemed like mere Hell at the time.

It is from this perspective that Milius views the war, as the country, still a polyglot mixture of Eastern Patricians, farmers, cowboys, outlaws, Indians, African-Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants. This idea has been explored in innumerable other war films over the years, but rarely better and in as much detail. President William McKinley (Brian Keith, our former Milius Roosevelt) specifically tells General Wheeler that he hopes that this war will finally allow America to finally heal the breach that four years of Civil War and a decade more of Reconstruction had created. This motif is made fairly heavy-handed at times - such when a Confederate veteran, watching the Rough Riders go by, tells his son "They ain't Yankees, they're Americans!" - but for the most part it works. This idea has been tackled in a number of other films - John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy and Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee come to mind - but rarely so well as it is here.

Although the major driving forces behind the war are dealt with peripherally, the movie does succeed in showing America as a Fighting Nation, united and defined through combat. In 2009, war is for most an abhorrent thing, and imperialism the most evil word imaginable, but in 1898 it was a glorious thing and the test of a nation's mettle and worth. A group of young patricians pledge to join the war effort in spite of their privileged positions - citing and reciting Henry V's Agincourt speech as an excuse not to "hold their manhoods cheap", which drives them on even as the bodycount rises around them. Other men join for a variety of reasons, whether out of patriotism, or fleeing an unhappy home, or escaping the law, or simply lack of anything better to do. In the end, though, the film is about men (and their country) proving themselves through battle, regardless of why they're there or what they hope to achieve, a theme which Milius seems enamored of and can do better than almost any other director.

And yet the movie is much contemplative and serious on the issue than the cartoonish (albeit probably satirical) Wind and the Lion, which had its characters drinking a toast to "A world at war". The movie's show of the chaotic and almost ridiculous nature of the war (particularly the scene where Roosevelt commandeers a fellow Colonel's train) are very much in a Milius vein, but then he's only adhering to the historical record. Otherwise, however, the movie has a much more somber and serious note than one might expect. The violence here, particularly the almost painfully-protracted final battle, is much more graphic, brutal and serious than the fun, enjoyable horse-and-bayonet charges of The Wind and the Lion (not to mention other Milius romps like Red Dawn). Watching the close-range, confused gun battles in the jungle - with O'Neail (Sam Elliot)'s troopers exchanging fire with their Cuban allies by mistake - and especially the painfully-drawn out pre-battle artillery and machine-gun barrage, is far from Milius' usual heroics. It's a much more serious film, not only in its portrayal of the violence but the themes discussed.

As the film grinds along, America's motives for the war come under question repeatedly. There's an obvious bit of symbolism towards the end, as a disgusted and contemplative Roosevelt sits amidst the aftermath of the battle, an American flag waving before the sign of an "Imperial Sugar Company". An obvious symbol, but an affective one. America's character may be defined by such wars, but to what end are they fought? Is the war's purpose the ideal of liberating oppressed Cubans, or of expanding America's colonial interests into the Caribbean? More broadly speaking: Is America's newfound exceptionalism of a different and more idealistic nature than the crooked, self-serving and cruel imperialism of the Old World powers of Europe, or are we naive to simply not recognize it as its own virulent strain of imperialism? As one character succinctly puts it, "I'd rather my friend have not died for the sugar companies." It's cliche to note how pertinent that is to our current conflict in Iraq, but it's appropriate so I'll do it anyway.

On the whole, though the film contains Milius's admiration of masculinity and heroism, the same hard-boiled and staccato tough guy dialogue, and ridiculously macho protagonists, the movie shows a much more serious and mature Milius than the one most of us know (whether or not we love him). While he still loves a strong, virile hero and a good bloodbath, he at least acknowledges what's at stake in such conflicts, and no longer advocates violence for violence's sake. It is a sign of remarkable maturity on his part, at least compared to where he started out.

The movie does suffer unfortunately from its limited, made-for-TV scope; the full-frame presentation robs many scenes of their potential scope and grandeur. The huge final assault on San Juan Heights would have been awe-inspiring in a theatrical release, but fortunately still manages to be fairly impressive, all things considered. Among (fairly) recent efforts, the sheer scope of the final charge rivals the Pickett's Charge sequence in Gettysburg, the Fort Wagner battle in Glory, and the Normandy landings in Saving Private Ryan for impressiveness on both a visual and a visceral level. The other action sequences are mostly confused skirmishes, half-visible enemies exchanging blind rifle fire in a jungle, with many casualties on both sides. Milius always handles action well, and this film contains some of his best work on that score.

The center of the film is of course Tom Berenger, who gives a Roosevelt performance surpassing perhaps even Brian Keith's legendary portrayal. It is a total performance: he embodies the famous remark by a British diplomat that TR was in reality a six-year old. He is full of endless intelligence, extraordinary enthusiasm and inexhaustible, childish energy; the scene where he eagerly rushes through a dinner reception embracing and greeting friends (and knocking over a waiter or two) is simply hysterical. It's completely over-the-top and even cartoonish, but in that respect it's completely true to life; there has rarely been a more self-parodic individual than Roosevelt. It may not be entirely fair to compare his performance to Keith's - after all, Berenger had the balance of a three-plus hour movie while Keith had maybe twenty minutes of a two-hour one - but Berenger may even surpass Keith's portrayal as a historical portrait and a sheer, bravura performance in its own right. Bully.

The supporting cast is also generally solid. A lot of great character actors are given perfunctory roles - a sadly decrepit-looking Brian Keith, R. Lee Ermey, Illeana Douglas, George Hamilton, Nick Chinlund - but this is understandable given the focus of the film. Gary Busey's aged but very game ex-Rebel General Wheeler, still fighting the Civil War, is perhaps the best performance of the film aside from Berenger. Brad Johnson does a nice job with a fairly predictable "coward-to-hero" character arc, and Dale Dye shines in a rare central role as General Wood. William Katt and Adam Storke have a moving death scene as a pair of American war correspondants who, unlike the self-centered Hearst, actually put themselves on the front line. Milius veteran Geoffrey Lewis has an amusing bit as the camp cook Eli. Marshall R. Teague plays a young John Pershing, who leads a unit of Buffalo soldiers into the fray on San Juan Hill. And Sam Elliot, of course, is as much a badass as usual, the tough guy US Marshall turned Cavalry Captain Bucky O'Neil, who grows to grudgingly respect his former nemesis Nash.

So, what further cinematic adventures lie in store for President Roosevelt? Besides his wordless bit part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, of course. Martin Scorsese supposedly has an adaptation of Edmund Morris's great bio Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in the works, albeit with Leonardo DiCaprio(!) as Teddy, so we'll keep an eye on that. And who knows? Maybe soon I'll get around to reviewing Robin Williams' portrayal of Roosevelt in Night of the Museum.

Regardless, John Milius has now served Theodore Roosevelt well twice on film, and if there never is another worthwhile film on TR, we'll at least have these two. Rough Riders is a great movie, both as a gripping war film and a contemplative historical work, and is a bully and dee-lightful work for both war film fans and TR afficionados.

Rating: 8/10 - Highly Recommended