DRUMMER BOY is a musical spawned from the group For King + Country. In 2012 they had worked up the song The Little Drummer Boy as parrt of their Christmas show and the song took on a life of its own. The song eventually spawned this historical musical drama.
The plot of the film has two brothers ending up on either side of the American Revolution. One brother joins the British and tries to make time with the daughter of a rich general while the other ends up as a drummer in the American army. Their paths eventually cross on the battlefield.
The plot of the film is trying to do a great deal. The film want to not only tell the story of the brothers but also deal with notions of racial equality with one of the brother having feelings for the Black girl owner by the family of the general. It's a thread that is rightly there but at the same time it's a bit too shiney for what the reality would have been. It done in a way that makes them look good for including it but it does so in a manner that isn't going to offend their chosen audience.
Over all the plot isn't bad but it isn't anything we haven't seen before. The basic story is fine but ultimately unremarkable
The problem with the film is the music. Most of the songs sound similar and all of them seem to be show stoppers. The music sounds like it was made by a group that is used to playing stadiums and going for big emotions. Beyond the songs sounding the same, the music breaks the film because the music doesn't fit what we are seeing. It isn't that the sound is anacronistic, the music in THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE was at time wrong for the time, rather its big and booming and you feel its outside the action. Sequences that should rock us emotionally just sit there.
My thought over and over again was that this film would have been soo much better as a straight film.
For me this a major miss.
Not really recommended, this is going to work best for fans of For King + Country.
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