Devon Miles (Nick Cannon) is a brash young drummer with a scholarship to Atlanta A&T. He was raised by a single mom in Harlem. Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones) runs the program but he's very traditional under pressure to update his style to compete against a rival. Devon flirts with dancer Laila (Zoe Saldana) immediately. Leader of the drumline Sean Taylor (Leonard Roberts) is challenged by Devon's rebellious nature and his superior playing. It all culminates in a big BET competition.This is a pretty simple coming-of-age story against the backdrop an interesting African American subculture. Nick Cannon is great as the brash young buck and I didn't even realize that the love interest was played by Zoe Saldana until I watched it again recently. This follows a very traditional formula and delivers a very competent movie.

Once you've seen Drumline, halftime shows will become works of art. This formulaic yet surprisingly captivating movie honors the military precision of college football marching bands, those battalions of eager, sternly disciplined brass sections, drummers, and fly girls who turn halftime shows into well-oiled Vegas variety acts on steroids. Devon (played by Will Smith protégé Nick Cannon) is a cocky Brooklyn kid with a snare-drumming scholarship to (fictional) Atlanta A&T University. He can't read music (he lied on his application) and his attitude sucks, but he's the best natural drummer the college has ever had, so he quickly rises through the marching band ranks. The school year brings Devon the obligatory girlfriend (Zoë Saldana, smart and charming); clashes with his old-school band director (Orlando Jones); and well-earned redemption at the championship marching band showdown. No surprises here, but great chemistry all around, and a fantastic, positive role-model showcase for a musical form that has evolved far beyond the main street parades of Smalltown, U.S.A.

Why do people keep telling me to enjoy the music and not worry about the plot as if that's some kind of saving grace for the film? I'd probably have enjoyed some filmed performances of actual bands a whole lot more. If you feel a need to add some kind of plot to the genre, you really ought to make it plausible, even if you're going to make it formulaic and predictable. Spoilers coming between the stars.***OK. This young kid gets a full ride scholarship in music to a college. Nobody could tell he can't read music?!?!!!?!??! I'm sorry, but that sort of thing just trips my ohfergodsakegimmeabreak switch, and it ruins entire movies for me even if they were otherwise pretty good.Even getting accepted for training at a music school will require you to read a piece of music you will never have seen. The filmmakers, though, apparently want me to believe that he got a full scholarship to a music school without anybody checking that out? It might even be possible that such a scholarship could be given even with such a lack if the player is good enough, but it would certainly have been discovered prior to acceptance unless the school is being run by morons.There's even a "sight reading" audition where he apparently was given the music beforehand. WRONG!!!!! Sight reading means it is plopped in front of you, and you get maybe 30 seconds to look it over before you have to play it. There's even a good chance that it was written shortly before auditions. Sight reading is a test to find out how quickly one can absorb an unfamiliar piece of music. Any chance to prepare it defeats the purpose of the test. The only reason to do it the way this film does it is that the story writer wanted to have this undiscovered deficiency in the character. That's just plain awful writing.***So the plot if formulaic, predictable, and badly written. Maybe it's just me, but formulaic, predictable, badly written plots ruin my ability to enjoy the music. The performances were probably better than I thought they were because of this. That's criminal.

The "talented young smart-ass goes to college and learns there's more to life than being skillful or clever" theme is an old one and it's been done better many times in the past. Robert Young learned about teamwork in "Navy Blue and Gold." More recently Rob Lowe learned the lesson in "Oxford Blues." The difference between Drumline and these and other older films on the same theme is that the lead characters evoked more sympathy. Nick Cannon's Devon Miles character is a self-centered, posturing, swaggering jackass who evokes immediate dislike and though you see him grow up a little in the course of the film, you never really learn to like or respect him.Drumline also suffers from an identity crisis of its own. You're never really sure what sort of story it wants to tell. Is is a "coming of age" story, a drama, a comedy, a romance? It tries to be all of these at once and never seals the deal on any of them.Drumline could have told a good story about a New York kid learning that there's more than one way to be black in this world. There are a couple of hints of that in Devon's relationship with Laila. Her comment to Devon: "Southern sisters don't date...we have boyfriends," could have been an opening to a good subplot about differences in black culture between different parts of the US, but, as with so many other possible plots, the story touches it lightly, and then flits off to something else. An arrogant young freshman such as Devon would have had many lessons to learn while finding his way in this environment, but the film misses nearly every opportunity to show us the relationships between the characters in any depth, so the performances come off as predictable and mechanical.All the same, I've seen Drumline several times and enjoyed it for what it does very well. The presentation of the music and and the work that goes into running a big university marching band are very good. I could have done with more of both. The all-too-brief glimpses of life at a black southern university are well done. Again, I could have done with more of that as well. Drumline also had moments of humor, and some visually engaging camera work, especially in the music scenes.I like this movie. I just wish it had been better done.