Were race relations really better in the 1990s? They were certainly different on the screen. Rough Riders shows a vanished America, not just of the 1890s, but the 1990s. You couldn't make it now — war is praised as a spur to heroism, patriotism is taken for granted, and the aristocracy exists to serve the nation through military service. Yet was the rot already present even in one of John Milius's greatest films?
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