Rings completely hollow and false, with no redeeming qualities.

Rating: 1/10 (12 October 2018)

As a musician and a drummer, I was urged by a couple of different friends to watch this "praised" movie. Aside from a few of the JK Simmons insults, which I laughed at, there is nothing good about this film, as it clearly shows that the filmmaker and the editor know nothing about music or drumming. He reduces all of drumming to "that's not my tempo", thereby dumbing down the entire art form into a click track, meanwhile, revealing no insight into what it actually means to play the drums, or be a musician. The film won an Oscar for best editing, although, throughout the film, the drumming that you hear, and what you see being played by the unlikeable lead actor, do not match, and in the finale, the overhead shots obviously reveal that it is not the actor, but rather a stand-in musician. Both lead characters are unlikeable and actually ridiculous. Everything about the movie rings hollow, and, worst of all, false. The most ridiculous thing of all is how poorly and over-the-top he represents the drumming. Jazz drumming largely requires an ease of dexterity, not this growling buffoon using baseball-bat sized sticks, bleeding all over the snare drum, while making Rocky faces. Did I actually see the ride cymbal "sweat" ? Oh my God, it was so bad. If you fall for this piece of garbage, I don't know what to tell you ...