Film Review: Drummer Boy

Drummer Boy
Director: Ben Smallbone, Joel David Smallbone
Red 56, 2521 Entertainment
In Theaters 11.06.2026

Have you ever seen a musical done backwards? I don’t mean starting at the end of the story and working your way back to the beginning, Memento style. I mean reversing the formula completely. A good musical must have enough substance in its plot and characters to tell a compelling story and keep you engaged between musical numbers, but you still bought the ticket for the songs. With Drummer Boy, the plot is just barely engaging enough to hold your attention, and whenever the music kicks in, all of the energy and exuberance drains right out of the room.

Drummer Boy follows the Clem family, whose hopes for a better life in the American colonies are shattered by tragedy and ultimately divided by war. Years after their father’s death, brothers Jeremiah (Joel David Smallbone, Unsung Hero) and Benjamin (Lucas Leach, Crookhaven) find themselves on opposing sides of the growing conflict. Jeremiah joins the British army, hoping to secure his family’s future and win the approval of a powerful military officer, Lord Balfour (Charles Esten, Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, Nashville), whose daughter Elizabeth (Beth Easdown, Love Without Walls) has captured his attention. Benjamin, meanwhile, throws his support behind the Patriot cause, becoming a regimental drummer under Major John Ambrose (Iain Glen, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Game of Thrones), despite a childhood injury that left him with a permanent disability in his leg.

Complicating matters is Emmaline (India Brown, Invasion, Honeybunch), an enslaved childhood friend of the brothers who harbors feelings for Jeremiah and dreams of freedom. When she begins secretly exchanging letters with him while posing as Elizabeth, an unexpected romance develops, setting in motion revelations about her own connection to the Balfour family. As loyalties are tested and the war brings the brothers toward a fateful confrontation, each must reconsider the meaning of the words freedom, family and sacrifice.

The storyline for Drummer Boy isn’t great, but it’s a watchable period melodrama in an American History for Dummies kind of way. The movie earns some goodwill for addressing the contradiction of the fight for freedom from British rule while leaving the practice of slavery intact, though that particular storyline is weighted down by a somewhat romantic triangle. Drummer Boy manages to work slightly better than expected as a melodrama, but its failings as a musical exceeded my worst fears: The strictly amateur pop-country songs are embarrassingly repetitive and so lacking in melody that the awkwardness is excruciating. The first big attempted showstopper consists of dueling choruses of “If you believed what I believed maybe you could see what I can see” and “If you could see what I can see maybe you’d believe what I believe” ad nauseam, and never it establishes a clear tune.

On top of the feeble nature of the songwriting, there’s also the cast’s sheer switches on a dime from stilted period dialogue spoken in community theater British accents to singing in good ol’ boy slang with an entirely affected twang (even Lord Balfour suddenly moves from doing a clumsy mix of Roger Moore and Thurston Howell to enthusiastically channeling Toby Keith). Where Hamilton renders any criticism of its anachronistic premise moot precisely because that is the point of the premise, Drummer Boy is more akin to two random puzzle pieces that don’t connect being forcibly jammed together.

The performances are inconsistent, with lead actor/co-director Smallbone faring worst, from his choppy accent to his bland characterization. Leach is by far the more charismatic and credible presence, though it’s Glen, as Ambrose, who gives the only transcendent performance. Glen plays the war-weary soldier battling the moral and religious trauma of the things that he’s said and done with such grace and power that he is able to slightly elevate the weak material.

Drummer Boy’s few (and they are very few) strengths can’t compensate for the uninspired songwriting and awkward tonal shifts. It’s a film that seems perpetually at odds with itself, never quite finding the rhythm between its historical drama and its country-pop ambitions. Unfortunately, when the music is supposed to be the main attraction, Drummer Boy consistently marches off beat. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews by Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: Klara and the Sun
Film Review: Wildwood

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