"Drummer Boy," a family film set during the American Revolutionary War, has won praise in a review published by Alternet for treating the founding era not as a costume drama but as a living story about dissent, faith and liberty. For readers outside the faith-and-family film audience, the review also offers a window into how a family-friendly release with political undertones is being read against a charged election-year backdrop.

The film, released by Angel Studios, follows two brothers whose professional and personal lives are caught up in the early phases of America's founding conflict. The Alternet reviewer highlights one scene in particular as the engine of the plot — and as a moment of strong personal identification.

In that scene, Benjamin Clem (Lucas Leach) publicly criticizes the administration of King George III, offending customers at a business he co-owns with his mother, Rachel (Melora Hardin), and the film's protagonist, his older brother Jeremiah (Joel David Smallbone, who co-directed the film with his real-life brother, Ben). Jeremiah orders Benjamin to hold his tongue, but Benjamin cannot stop himself. Without spoiling the details, the review notes that's boldness — which some might call pigheadedness — sets the main plot in motion.

Benjamin takes his stand at a disadvantage: he has a disabled leg. The reviewer writes that he identified strongly with the character, describing himself as physically disabled — living with a hand-eye coordination disability that prevents him from driving, a balance disorder that makes it hard to walk straight, and what he calls a body that "feels like a bag of rocks I drag around." Like Benjamin, he writes, he is prone to expressing political views even when others tell him to be quiet.

Those traits are not prerequisites for enjoying the film, the review adds. All that is required, it argues, is "an idealist with a taste for American history and catchy, uplifting Christian pop."

A Revolutionary War story from Angel Studios

"Drummer Boy" is the latest release from Angel Studios, a company that Alternet describes as having pushed other subtly right-leaning films into the marketplace, including "The Brink of War," about President Ronald Reagan during the Reykjavík Summit, and "Young Washington," about President George Washington's early military career. Taken together, the titles amount to a run of American historical subjects — one that gives the studio's Revolutionary War entry added resonance in a year when, as Ben Smallbone notes, the founding it depicts is 250 years old. For readers following the family-film market, it is a run worth tracking.

In the case of "Drummer Boy," the review continues, the conservatism manifests chiefly in the protagonists' full-throated Christianity, which at times seems to imply that American ideas about liberty cannot be separated from Christian theology.

The filmmakers, however, disavow any such intention.

"Look, the separation of church and state is a part of the government, and I believe that is an essential part of that," Ben Smallbone told Alternet. "For the story of the film, no, we don't make a direct statement about that, and we don't plan to make a direct statement about that in the film. This was the founding of the United States 250 years ago. There was no acknowledgement of really what was gonna happen, who was gonna win. Were the British gonna take over? Were they gonna free the slaves? Were the United States gonna free the slaves if the patriots won? And so this is a story truly trying to discover what unites us instead of what divides us."

Smallbone reiterated: "And so, look, I don't know exactly where that would be stated in the film, but it is not in there presently."

World-building anchors the film

Taking Smallbone at his word, the reviewer recommends "Drummer Boy" as wholesome family entertainment "not only on its surface level, but also beneath the skin, where insidious agendas sometimes lurk." Like the best Angel Studios fare, he writes, it is a straightforward story rather than a propagandistic one, and it delivers the nuanced characterizations one expects from high art rather than the melodramas often churned out by Christian-led studios.

The film's most important virtue, in the reviewer's judgment, is its world-building. In many movies set during the Revolutionary War — especially those made for families — the late 18th century is presented not as an inhabited era of history but as a style: a patois, an aesthetic, a collection of fashion and architectural choices. By contrast, the Smallbones and co-writer Ramsey L. Ramsey let their version of colonial America get its hands dirty. Between the expected period touches, "Drummer Boy" is stuffed with characters and corner-of-the-screen details that coax viewers into suspending disbelief. Before long, the review observes, the film no longer feels like a story set in history, but like one whose characters could very easily be grappling with modern concerns.

As a result, when characters such as the Clem brothers quarrel over politics, being educated and provoked to think is secondary to being entertained. The filmmakers, the reviewer notes, hoped for exactly that.

"There's an old saying: We make our plans, but God orders our steps," Joel David Smallbone told Alternet. "And I'm so proud of the fact that this film is coming out three days after midterm elections, and that as people are grappling with exactly the question you just asked. Is this a reflection of history? Are we repeating ourselves? All of these questions, those are the questions we were asking ourselves as we wrote. You know, what is freedom? What is forgiveness? Who are we? What is our identity? And I like asking questions, Matthew. That's my heart, is to ask questions. And so I love that you're pulling all of these pieces. My job is to provoke them."

Smallbone then laughed.

"Your job is to ask the question as well," he added.

Echoes of the present day

The question that prompted those remarks was whether the Smallbones realized that their conservative-leaning audience would soon hear criticisms of King George III that closely resemble how critics today blast President Donald Trump.

"At one point in the film, the British remind me of, dare I say, President Trump," the reviewer told Smallbone. "They defend King George III by citing the divine right of kings, much as Trump says he was put here by God to lead America; that we must fight a war against France, as opposed to Iran, to protect our way of life; and they confiscate grain like Trump levying tariffs willy-nilly."

None of that was intentional, the review notes — but it says a great deal about "Drummer Boy" as a deeper narrative that it provoked those thoughts. Like the younger Clem brother refusing to be quiet, the film is a determinedly positive celebration of American history that refuses to shut its mouth: a tribute, and a Valentine, to American obstreperousness toward tyranny.

In a year when Americans are debating existential issues — fueled, in the reviewer's assessment, in no small part by Trump's attempts to steal the midterm elections — the message of "Drummer Boy" is particularly suited to the year 2026, even as it remains timeless. For film watchers, how the studio's blend of faith framing and founding-era storytelling continues to land with family audiences is one thread to follow.