Whiplash

Tight, Extorting, Without Impugn.

Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) is a brilliant young jazz drummer who joins the world's top music conservatory. The school's monster Jazz maestro Terrence Fletcher (J. K. Simons), eccentric, fierce, diabolic, among other things spots the genius in the boy but tests him with hellfire to bring out the best in him in the most unconventional ways.

Brilliance oozes in the lead actors of the film - Miles Teller as an ace drummer, driven singularly with his passion, drawing inspiration from the best jazz musicians of the world, plays his part more than convincingly. The dark stories and the bitter yearning that make brilliant music are more bloody and sweaty than war and Teller portrays that beautifully. Simons as Fletcher, the mysterious monster flinging innovative insults at his prodigies has a compelling quality. Bald, wrinkled, short-tempered, he is a reckless demon wrapped in human skin. He is unpredictably dangerous and you never know what is going to go wrong when it's him.

The story is beautifully written bringing comic elements in dramatic sequences and melodrama in inspiring scenes. Director Damien Chezelle gives an exceptional build up to his scenes, making you gasp or chuckle in unexpected places. The climax, a final showdown between the lead pairs on a platform with high-stakes, infront of New York's most discerning pairs of ears, was an apt ending to the tale. It leaves you in lasting wonder, a positive yet incomplete feeling, that the pupil and mentor, both might as well have found their destinies in each other. Technically sound, Whiplash brings the intricacies and nuances of Jazz music to the layman. Tasteful and crafty camera work with old school classic ways coming back, Whiplash is true to its title - tight, extorting, without impugn.