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Despite tons of pep and skill lavished on proving that marching-band music won't be the sound we sinners will hear in hell, Charles Stone III's Drumline is ultimately not much more than a sugarcoated Rocky. A Harlem hip-hop drummer (excuse me?) named Devon (Nick Cannon) leaves the Apple to join Atlanta's A&T University's "show-style" marching band. Devon tussles with ultra-sober music dean Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones) and feh romantic interest Laila (Zoe Saldana), but eventually learns that being a faceless member of the crowd is the right thing in the rising neoconservative regime. Slickly disinterested of the concerns humans face in the real world, Drumline earns its uplift the new-fashioned way--it fakes it.