Moronic, pointless, and full of crap

Rating: 1/10 (26 January 2015)

If you are a believer in the clichéd notion that success can only come from obsessive dedication to the exclusion of all normal human interaction, coupled with mountains of degradation, suffering, humiliation, and physical torture, you will absolutely adore this worthless pile of clichés, stereotypes, and bankrupt cinematic ideas. The story of a young jazz drummer who is brutalized by a sadistic teacher in the interests of spurring him to greatness is one of the most repulsive exercises in sheer idiocy ever committed to the screen. I watched and watched, waiting for some valid point to emerge from scenes of torment, bleeding hands, broken relationships, hideous nastiness and all the rest, but in the end, all we get is a whopping nonsensical cliché that only a fool could buy into. J.K. Simmons (the psychologist from Law and Order) does a credible job as the sadistic teacher, but honestly, no one could do much with a part this stereotypical... he couldn't have been more villainous unless he had a mustache to twirl. And the rest of the cast doesn't do any better with their phony baloney parts. Folks, if you don't have a credible story based in some form of recognizable and believable reality, nothing else matters. The fact that this one gets such a high rating on IMDb proves that HL Mencken was right: No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.