Not every formula movie can be counted a failure. Consider The Marching Band, an amiable French offering that tells the story of two men who learn they are brothers when it becomes necessary for one of them to locate the other for medical reasons involving a bone marrow transplant. Both were adopted by different parents as young children. Neither knew of the other until the medical crisis that brought them together. A successful conductor, Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe) benefited from a privileged upbringing, but is shaken when he learns he has leukemia. Brother Jimmy (Pierre Lottin) lives in a small town where life revolves around a factory; he plays trombone in the town’s marching band. The movie flirts with becoming a familiar tribute to small-town pluck as the band prepares to enter a contest. Additionally, though, the story deals with the relationship between brothers who contemplate what their lives might have been given different rolls of the dice. Director Emmanuel Courcol contrasts the town band’s amateurish efforts with Thibaut’s accomplished work as a classical musician, and the movie builds toward an ending centering on Ravel’s Bolero and sounding the right chord for a small-scale crowd-pleasing effort.
