Drumline follows the story of a high school drummer who wins a scholarship to a prestigious marching band college. He experiences the many challenges of college and competes with those around him.

At the beginning of the movie, it was impossible to be invested in Drumline. I found it to be a little boring and that there was nothing keeping me from leaving. It took longer than usual to empathise with the characters and you didn't really care what happened to them. One of the most exciting parts for me personally (the drumming of course!) didn't even get interesting until a fair way into the movie. This dull section of the movie lasted for about half an hour. But once they actually started hitting those drums, it started to get engaging.

The marching band scenes were definitely the part that made this movie enjoyable. I thought that the music that they played was quite breathtaking and the choreography that came with it was equally impressive. And even for musicians who may have seen many of these marching band performances, it would be enjoyable to analyse these scenes. 

Another great aspect of this movie were the messages. There were some incredible ones not just about music, but also about life in general. But apart from these two great things about the movie, the music and the themes, there wasn't much else in the movie that I enjoyed. There were a couple of funny moments but the humour was not the classic Australian humour which I was used to. The characters didn't feel very relatable and were honestly quite hard to understand a lot of the time. But all of this might just be because I'm Australian. Perhaps Americans enjoy this movie more, but this proves the point that this movie isn't for everyone.

Drumline isn't the kind of movie that I will want to see again. It also isn't the kind of movie which I will be strongly recommending to anyone. If you are a drummer, then there will be some entertaining and quite interesting parts of the movie. But outside of these select scenes, nothing else is enjoyable. Perhaps if you are American, you may enjoy the movie more but I think that it is only aimed towards a select few.

Drumline was mostly an educational experience. The movie only had a couple of laugh-out-loud moments with humour that I'm assuming is mostly aimed toward Americans. It is a movie that would be fun to closely analyse but otherwise is forgettable.

Director: Charles Stone III

Starring: Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones

Year released: 2002

My rating: 4/10

Review by Tristan Carr

Last edited: 02/05/2021