Jeff's Reviews

Thoughts on every movie I've ever seen.

Whiplash (2014)

Directed by Damien Chazelle

Starring Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist

Author

Music porn. Anyone who loves music will love this movie. Beautifully edited and shot, with a warm, golden glow cascading over every scene.

Simmons plays a truly hateful authoritarian whose intensity rivals R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. And he’s good at it. Oscar material. Teller plays a pretty good victim, and he’s also got some serious skills. There’s some unbelievable drumming in this one. Loved the final scene.

If anything, the story is perhaps a little simplistic. We see glimpses of Andrew’s relationship with his father and girlfriend, but he makes no other connections with the people around him. The fiery relationship between Andrew and Fletcher is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the movie, but I would have enjoyed seeing another angle to Andrew. Yes, the path to greatness can be a difficult and lonely one, but the movie seemed a bit one-dimensional.

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