Movie Review Whiplash

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2014 - Spoiler alerts A brilliant movie about jazz music, blind ambition stripping away human decency, and bullying. Miles Teller stars as Andrew Neiman, a New York drummer who idolizes Jazz legend, Charlie Rich. He finds himself hand-picked to play in a prestigious competition orchestra by a Shaffer University instructor and conductor, Terence Fletcher, played by J K Simmons who earned one of the best deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscars ever awarded for his scene stealing performance. Fletcher is the conductor from Hell, demanding long hours, making players play until their fingers bleed, replacing performers in an instant if they don’t meet his excessively demanding standards, and even throwing chairs at the players. When Neiman under-performs for having been injured in a car crash on his way to a show, he gains no sympathy or consideration from Fletcher at all, and then gets fired for his angry reaction to it. Learning that Fletcher drove another student to suicide through such intimidation, Neiman sues his former tutor and gets him fired, but later the two men are destined to meet and perform together again. Fletcher is frustrated that as good as the musicians are, he is not finding a desired protégé he can make into the next Louis Armstrong. He does not just want good, but genious, and that eludes him. Neiman’s character is by no means squeaky clean himself, ruthlessly losing another drummer’s music papers to be able to take his place in the band at a vital performance, and alienating himself from the other players. He sacrifices love to performance too, reasoning that as Charlie Parker was disliked by most who knew him, it is good enough for him too. The closing drum solo performance of Duke Ellington’s composition Caravan is jaw dropping. The title song, Whiplash was written by Hank Levy in 1974. Teller, as Neiman is brilliantly filmed as he could not play the drums to the standard required but he is shot as if he is doing the work himself. In fact much of his drumming is performed by Nate Lang, who is a professional musician, and a rival drummer in the film too. If you don’t like jazz before watching this movie, you may well love it afterwards. Youtube The Whiplash main music that gives the film its title Arthur Chappell