'I was there to push people beyond what's expected of them. I believe that's an absolute necessity'

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2015)

Damien Chazelle both wrote and directed WHIPLASH and his film won three Oscars and a lot of fans. It is s difficult film to watch on DVD - the small screen acts life a loaded rifle timed at your head and blasting your eardrums with both jazz and the raunchiest dialogue around. It I basically a two actor show (with some incidental and rather meaningless bit parts tossed in to try to offer a bit of emotional resting during this madhouse of a film.
Andrew (Miles Teller) is a young and talented drummer attending a prestigious cut-throat music academy in New York who comes under the wing of the most respected professor at the school, one Fletcher (J.K.Simmons) who does not hold back on abuse towards his students. The two form an odd relationship as Andrew drams of greatness and Fletcher (we finally discover at the end of the film) will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
Both actors offer top performance (as do the bit part player Paul Reiser as Andrew's father and Melissa Benoist as Nicole- Andrew's minor infatuation), but the film for the most part is a barrage of gross desultory and demeaning filth that pours out of J.K. Simmons' Shar Pei face and mouth. Vicious, cruel, demeaning he finally gets his due in part because Andrew is talked into reporting Fletcher's behavior when an incident happens with a fellow student. The last moments of the film make the first long one note song payoff – Fletcher's drive is intrinsically a desire to make his students be the best they can be. But oh, before that, it gets old rather quickly.