Extremely Overrated - all-around horrible

Rating: 1/10 (11 March 2015)

Take a cheezy D-list sports movie script complete with the cliché bullying, demeaning coach with the tormented, misunderstood athlete (reality: narcissistic, self-righteous, arrogant, spoiled and immature child who needs to grow up) -- replace these 2 characters with a jazz music "teacher" and a drum student at an "elite" music academy.
Neither character has ANY redeeming qualities - if the writers thought they were creating complex, intricate characters they failed miserably. The ending only shows how pathetic both truly are. I assume the writers (and anyone giving this film a positive review) felt they reached some great epiphany at the conclusion - they didn't. Only a tired out re-tread storyline completely out of proper context. A jazz drum student and music "teacher" are not soldiers in boot camp and learning to play drums is not a physically demanding, super- human endeavor as this film tries to lead you to believe.
In reality the "teacher" is a glorified conductor who thinks he's something special but does nothing but destroy his students desire and passion. He is also an admitted complete failure at his misguided goal of creating another Charlie Parker. The "student" is equally self-absorbed and rude excuse for a human being. Only thing positive is he seems to be a pretty decent jazz drummer - but that's it. Character has absolutely ZERO going for him other than that. Other than that he's completely disrespectful and dismissive of everything and everyone else.
This film (along with Birdman) sums up how pretentious Hollywood is and the excrement they promote at awards shows to convince themselves they have some higher "intellect" or "artistic genius." No one will remember Whiplash or Birdman other than as an embarrassing side note in Oscar history (remember Shakespeare in Love, didn't think so - Google it).