Complete garbage.

Rating: 7/10 (10 August 2016)

Whiplash is the story of a dreaming teenage drummer and his interactions with a strict jazz teacher who team up to become some dynamic duo. That would be cliché as it is, but the writer/director tries to go for something different and fails miserably. Thankfully it's short, because there is hardly a single good thing about this waste of reel, except for perhaps a few nice cinematic shots.
First of all, JK Simmons as Fletcher. JK is a good actor and plays the role very well, but the writing of his character is some of the worst in modern day cinema. Jazz is a very relaxed and fun genre. Smooth jazz is called smooth for a reason, you know. Fletcher is a jazz teacher who screams in his players face, belittles them in class, and even literally assaults them by throwing chairs at them and punching them in the face. This isn't the army, this is JAZZ. This character would be cartoony in an episode of Spongebob, let alone a live action film supposedly set in the real world. Do you really think people play SMOOTH JAZZ while being threatened and scared to play a single note incorrectly? No, they don't, they need to be calm. In one scene, Fletcher harasses an obese kid with a dumb name and claims he is playing out of key. He isn't, but second guesses himself when Fletcher calls him out. When the kid thinks about it, Fletcher not only calls him fat, but kicks him out of class. Another student had been playing out of key the entire time, and Fletcher says, "I know ____ was actually in key, but not knowing what key you're in is worse than being out of key." Are you kidding me? Of course you'll second guess yourself if a highly respected and very unstable man accuses you of playing out key. And literally the other guy who actually did play out of key gets off with no troubles. Unbelievable and very inconsistent with his character, as a real Fletcher would've given him some sort of punishment. All throughout the movie, Fletcher is belittling Miles, making fun of his dead mom and his depressed father, as if that would realistically motivate me to work with this guy further. If an instructor began making fun of my mom's cancer or my suicidal tendencies, I'd leave immediately and probably file a lawsuit. Again, this is very unrealistic for a character who is instructing a jazz band. Jazz players need to be as relaxed and free flowing as their music sounds, and they shouldn't be constantly on edge because of a sociopath Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of a teacher.
Miles Teller's character is an smug, arrogant douchebag, much like the actor himself. I genuinely believed he had some form of autism in the movie. He separates himself from society and even belittles his girlfriend and family members for something he's barely good at. I get that the writer was trying to make it seem like drumming was tearing him apart mentally, as stated later in the movie, but there is a much better way to do it than "you're an idiot and I'm gonna be famous one day!" like he's a 5th grader brat. And then he later on tries to contact his ex-girlfriend, who he called an idiot on their final date, and asks her out despite the fact that he knows she has a new boyfriend. He's an immature child, and not the character we should like. In fact, not a single character is likable in this heap.
There are so many more issues within the screenplay that it actually caused me to hit the 1000 maximum word limit, so I am just gonna jump to the ending. The film ends with the worst ending I've seen in a theatrical film this decade. Miles and Fletcher rekindle several months after the incident and team up to play in a new, not related to school jazz recital where Fletcher is the conductor. Right before the recital starts, we essentially learn that Fletcher is a mentally unstable child, who reveals that this entire teaming up was just a ploy to get his revenge on Miles. Yes, a 57 year old man with a job and career tries to get even with an immature autistic 19 year old college freshman. They also made it very clear that this was "the big show" and that the gig could "either create careers, or end careers". So Fletcher's decision to humiliate a 19 year old by intentionally screwing up the entire gig is super villain levels of evil, but not in a good way. In retaliation, Miles decides to one-up Fletcher by going on a six minute drum solo, where the most insulting part of the film comes. The final shot of the film is a close up of Fletcher grinning ear-to-ear and Miles nodding with another smile, implying that these two are back together again. The script even says "...and Fletcher has finally accepted Miles..." What a joke, and proof that something is seriously wrong not only with Fletcher, but this entire movie and probably the writer/director too.