AFTER CATNAPPING through most of this year's telecast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, awakened only by the squeals of my 3-year-old son every time a helium balloon shaped like Clifford the Big Red Dog or Curious George came on the screen, I wasn't looking forward to a feature film centered around marching bands. I didn't think it likely, let alone possible, that I could get worked into a lather over a drama about characters whose lives revolve around wearing furry and/or feathered hats and who make the kind of music you can neither dance nor sing along to.
Boy, was I wrong.
Orlando Jones and Nick Cannon star in "Drumline."
(20th Century Fox)
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"Drumline" takes that weird little subculture of the college marching band – and if you don't think getting up to do push-ups at 5:30 on a chilly fall morning before playing the tuba in gym shorts is weird, then you were probably a drum major yourself – and turns it into a story I couldn't help caring about. This movie does for the world of high-stakes competitive marching bands what "Bring It On" did for the world of high-stakes competitive cheerleading.
One difference: While that earlier film had a cheeky sense of humor about its subject, "Drumline" is dead serious – without being deadly. Perhaps it's closer in spirit to the recent chick-surf flick "Blue Crush," a movie set in an equally non-mainstream milieu (the world of female pro and amateur surfers), in the way it uses competition as a metaphor for personal transformation.
"Drumline" is primarily the story of Devon Miles (Nick Cannon), a talented and streetwise Harlem drummer whose skill has earned him a full scholarship to the fictional Atlanta A&T College, a onetime marching band powerhouse that has been on the losing end of a contest with its arch-rival ever since being taken over by the straight-laced bandleader Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones). And yes, this is the first – and probably last – time you will ever read the name "Orlando Jones" and the word "straight-laced" in the same sentence.
Of course, before the end of Devon's freshman year he will butt heads with Dr. Lee more than once, in addition to confronting a couple of his own personal demons. Devon's problem, you see, is not that he isn't the best. He is. Unfortunately he knows it. Dr. Lee's problem, then, becomes how to turn someone who loves the drum solo into a member of a percussion corps that values homogeneity over hotdogging. As everyone knows, there's no "I" in drumline.
Uh, wait a minute.
So maybe there's room for Devon to teach the stodgy Dr. Lee a thing or two after all.
Aaanyway, Devon showboats it every chance he gets, to the eternal consternation of a drill-sergeant-style upperclassman named Sean (Leonard Roberts), the drumline's section leader, and to the coquettish detachment of his would-be lady-love Laila (Zoe Saldana). Will Devon and Sean ever learn to cooperate? And will Laila let Devon into her heart? There's a bigger question: Will Devon lead the band out of its slump to take first prize in the Big Southern Classic, a kind of regional band Super Bowl? The answers to these questions may be foregone conclusions, but what's more important is the way in which they're delivered.
Directing only his second feature, Charles Stone III (creator of the infamous Budweiser "Whassuup?!" campaign) coaxes strong, nuanced performances from his relatively unseasoned cast. Cannon especially makes a believably complex hero, an angry young man who learns to whittle one very large chip on his shoulders into a pair of lightning-fast sticks.
But where Stone really excels is in the visual and musical excitement he manages to generate from the band footage. "Drumline" shakes, rattles and rolls the house, building to a climax that makes you almost forget you're in a movie theater and not a football stadium at halftime.
DRUMLINE (PG-13, 120 minutes) – Contains sexual references and some crude language. Area theaters.
