The American Revolution marches to new songs in “Drummer Boy,” an ambitious and handsomely mounted musical from the studio that brought us “Sound of Freedom” and “Young Washington.”

The Aussie ex-pat filmmaking Smallbone siblings — Joel David and Ben — who teamed up for the studio’s “Homestead,” overreach in this ahistorical attempt to graft a 1941 Christmas carol onto an 18th century story. But the failings of what was probably a dubious faith-based enterprise from the start (Richard L. Ramsey of “Unsung Hero” scripted it) don’t truly overwhelm it until its clumsy, drawn-out finale.

Up until then it’s perfectly watchable, if a bit of an eye-roller.

We meet two brothers, Jeremiah and Benjamin, and their parents (Ioan Gruffudd and Melora Hardin) as they cross the Atlantic during the French and Indian War. A duel with a French warship kills their soldier-father and cripples drum-happy young brother Benjamin.

Years later, Jeremiah (Joel David Smallbone) and leg-braced Benjamin (Lucas Leach) keep the family fed with their flour-milling business as the first shots are fired in Boston, Lexington and Concord. The American Revolution is pitting neighbor against neighbor. Soon that’ll turn to brother against brother.

Jeremiah joins the “lobsterback” British army in a regiment led by the aloof lord (Charles Eston) who came to America on the same ship as their family. He’ll keep the family in good standing with Tory customers, and maybe win the attentions of Lord Balfour’s fetching daughter Elizabeth (Beth Easdown). Or so he figures.

Ben’s all about the revolution and the “freedom” their father talked about, but never really experienced. His redcoat brother sees him as a “turncoat.” As Ben’s less able to march, shoot, stab and charge with his bum leg, he will have to do his part for the cause via his mad drumming skills.

The script pits brother vs. brother — unknowingly, most of the time — in fictionalized versions of various battles of the Revolution. It sets up a love triangle involving Jeremiah, whose letters to Elizabeth go unanswered, until her slave servant Emmaline (India Brown), who has been in love with him since he taught her to read on their passage to America, takes up the pen — posing as Elizabeth.

And through it all, battles and camp scenes, thwarted romance, dreams of freedom from bondage and family trials, folks break into song. It is a musical, after all.

“Are we children, playing” at war? Or “are we Abel? Are we Cain?”

Soldiers from both sides sing “God is with us,” and every character laments or embraces this idea of fighting for “a place where we can truly be free.”

The script is sophisticated enough to have enslaved and “free” characters comment on the irony of slaveholder Thomas Jefferson writing “all men are created equal,” and that interracial romance could be dreamed long before it became practical. Or legal.

So yes, this faith-based film is wrapped in Biblical platitudes and Christian expressions of liberty and freedom. That’s as “woke” as it sounds, and as it should be.

The songs aren’t bad, just forgettably anthemic, with big Christian pop arrangements, with “If you could see what I can see, maybe you’d believe what we believe” sentiments.

But Smallbone, Brown, Leach and Easdown have decent chops. It’s a pleasant surprise to hear how big-voiced Hardin, best known as Michael Scott’s most out-of-his-league “girlfriend” on “The Office,” can be.

And veteran character actor Iain Glenn, as the world-weary Scots-born commander of the American corps Ben joins, knows his way around a tune as well.

The predictably corny climax and anti-climaxes that follow may let down the side. But if you can fault the Smallbones for their slippery grasp of American history, you can’t fault a studio that is trying its hand at most every genre — animation, dramas, thrillers and musicals — taking a swing and missing.

Rating: PG-13, violence

Cast: Joel David Smallbone, Lucas Leach, India Brown, Melora Hardin, Ioan Gruffudd, Beth Easdown, Charles Eston and Iain Glenn

Credits: Directed by Ben Smallbone and Joel David Smallbone, scripted by Richard L. Ramsey. An Angel Studios release.

Running time: 2:09