Review of the movie Drumline
starring: Nick Cannon and Orlando Jones
Josh Bozeman
December 14, 2002

Possible spoilers below

Overall, Drumline is watchable. It's decent...I saw this at 11 am the day it opened...just me and 3 other people in the big theatre. That was nice. I was excited to see this movie, being a percussionist and a big marching drumline fan myself. The drum parts of the movie were good, tho they weren't done as well as the trailer made you think. A few things about the marching band stuff was silly. They were too militaristic in their teaching, which is something I have never even seen in drum corps, let alone college marching band. They don't scream at you and make you run up stairs with drums- well, I highly doubt they do! It seems to me that these kids are in college, yet I see no one in class or no studying, or anything else that could be construed as college work. They seem to have band practice 24/7! There IS one 30 second scene with Devon in a class (even tho it IS a music class.) Another thing that was totally fake was the fact that Devon had no idea how to read music, yet after a few lessons, he knows how to read music and very well, at that. Simple music is tough to read for a beginner, so the complicated rudimentary stuff in marching drumline music would be impossible to read without atleast a few months of study! There is some music I still can't read, and I have been a percussionist for over 10 years!
I also didn't like how they made this a "black" movie. What was the point of that? I mean...I guess I have nothing against movies that have only black cast members (seems like all gang movies are all black casts, and movies like brown sugar and soul food, etc...) I just don't like this whole concept in general. It appeals to a very limited audience. They HAD to make the character someone who had had famil problems (no father.) Why can't they make these movies and get the message across without the silliness? Why do the characters always have to have a tough childhood, grow up in the hood, or have a family member who abandoned them? It's an old formula that has been way overdone.
As for characters- Devon is awful. He is in NO way redeeming in his traits. He is a jerk throughout the entire movie, and like others have said, there's really no realization by him, and a change. He just seems to become a different person magically overnight. I think Nick Cannon did an okay job here, but his character is just so bad and unlikeable, who knows...The other characters are okay, but you don't get a very good feel for who they are. They seem to not be drawn out very well. Orlando Jones is really great as the band director tho.
Another con- why is trailers trick audiences into thinking a movie is totally different than it really is? When Devon auditions in front of the three guys in the trailer, his added part is much more powerful, accompanied by background music...and right after he plays it, you hear "i thought i'd add a little something- something on the end..." Then, you hear a voice that says "ah, yea...that'll work." They make it look as tho the band director and drum majors welcome his style, yet in truth- they cut out the line where the director gets upset and asks if he didn't like the selected piece...then the 3 guys talk about how he's a good player but his attitude is terrible. My point is- the trailer was made to trick the audience into thinking this was much more of a comedy than it really was. Don't change the whole meaning of a scene to trick the audience! That's wrong if you ask me...and the actual scene in the movie wasn't as good as the trailer, which can't be good! There are a few other scenes in the trailer that are twisted to make the movie seem different...
In the end, Drumline is mildy entertaining, especially to fans of marching band music, and in particular, the drumline...but, at the same time, it's ruined by a bad script and a very annoying jerk of a lead character. 5/10