Fantastic!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

A sort-of sequel to the rather splendid antebellum slavery melodrama Mandingo (it's based on the same novel series), Drum is less profound in its depiction of desire becoming catastrophe in a historic nightmare but it certainly contains enough to raise the eyebrows of viewers. As in Mandingo, the old South is a backdrop to transgressive sexual longings and congress, this time adding in homosexual desire (both male and female) to the mix.Drum's view of lesbianism is relatively enlightened, showing a long-term loving relationship between a fallen Southern belle turned Madame and her maidservant. This being a period of violence and tragedy, the two are soon separated by the black woman's murder. Male homosexuality is less well depicted, with a sadistic old Southern queen of a slaver and his handsome pathic being it's representatives. The old queen DeMarigny's role in the film is contradictory, as although he is the main antagonist to the handsome slave protagonist Drum, he also makes explicit the film's homoerotic glorifying in the body and sexuality of the boxer turned actor Ken Norton. The filmmakers clearly needed to disavow this homoerotic aspect to their drama, as they have Drum settling his scores with DeMarigny by ripping his genitals off with his bare fist.The film revels in its violence, cross-racial sexuality and spectacle to the extent that it feels less like Mandingo at times than the notorious slavery-Mondo film Addio zio Tom. The dialogue is salty and nasty, with liberal peppering of the "N" word and frank talk about white women's breasts and black men's "blacksnakes". Hearing as fine an actor as Warren Oates drooling "Oh you knows I likes big titties" is either hilarious or tragic, depending on what view you take. The film makes on feel like taking a bath after viewing, so foul is the world depicted therein – but this suggests to me that exploitation is the best way of drenching an audience in as disreputable and irredeemable a period of history as the slave-era. This is subject matter which would only be diluted if drenched in liberal humanism and turned into a redemption drama.Drum was advertised in the UK with the tagline "Mandingo lit the fuse, now Drum is the explosion" and the filmmakers certainly earn this as the screen does indeed erupt in chaos, riot and violence at the close. The Falconhurst mansion goes up not just in flames but in rather mystifying blasts, as if Oates' character were storing dynamite in most of the rooms. This complete destruction of the setting and most of the cast, as well as an extremely "unsatisfying" ending might be dramatically rather forced but it feels entirely appropriate for the subject matter.

This film was supposedly based on the book of the same name by Lance Horner and Kyle Onstott. So much of it is far from the text. For starters, Blaise was never owned by Hammond Maxwell (in the book, he was owned by the mistress, who was Madame Alix, not Marianna). It was Drum's son, Drumson, that was purchased by Hammond Maxwell, not Drum (Drum had died sometime back from an attack by Blaise). Also there was a Chauvet family in the book, but they were the ones who owned Meg and Alph (Augusta's name was not Chauvet, but Devereaux (later mentioned as Delavan)). The book actually starts out in the very early 1800s, quite a bit before the movie. Drumson was killed in the uprising in the book (but not in the movie). This would have been a better movie if the screenwriters had followed the text more closely.

Nobody should take this review seriously because all I know of Drum is the cast and the plot.Any movie that had Ken Norton in the lead invites this sort of criticism.Supposedly this movie is the sequel to Mandingo. Didn't Ken Norton die at the end of Mandingo? Doesn't that kind of prohibit him from being in the sequel apart from flash backs and such?Okay.Warren Oates plays the part Perry Kind had in Mandingo. At least one reviewer insists that this is okay because the story takes place 15 years later.Well, if one character returns as his unrelated but identical twin, what the heck.I understand that this movie is by turns realistic, sick, funny, has too much nudity, has not enough nudity . . . Folks, back up. This movie has Ken Norton in the lead. Does anything else need to be said? Anyone who takes it seriously deserves what they get.

Overall this is a fair film. Maybe not fair to history or the actors. Ken Norton asking Yaphet Kotto if he had let Sophie touch his snake was very amusing. The use of N word has to be at least a hundred times. I found the film to be in bad taste and not for any purpose other than to exploit. At the end Warren Oates makes a statement that sums up the whole film. He says that slaves are unpredictable sometimes, just like some kind of mad critter. ** out of *****