A promising young drummer enrolls at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
You’ll want back for more as soon as it’s over.
Like Black Swan with drums, Whiplash digs its own relentless tempo.
Marches to the beat of its own drum… Lands with a bang… There just aren’t enough musical clichés to describe Whiplash. A masterclass in technique, power and rhythm, it stings and sings like nothing else.
Sum up the plot and it sounds interminable. Watch the film and it will spit you out elated, exhausted and cheering for an encore.
What is clear is that in telling the story of the teacher and his pupil, Chazelle had driven himself to make a film that is dynamic, provocative and moving - and in which the emotional tempo never stops rising.
A cracking effort from all concerned.
Concussion merges with percussion. It’s a film with impact.
Simmons is unnervingly good as a teacher who rules by fear and the final showdown provides as gripping a climax as you will see all year.
The film’s greatness comes in a large part from the performances, with Simmons in particular adding texture and substance to Fletcher in a way that makes it possible to simultaneously revere and revile him – just as Teller’s Andrew does. But the film succeeds as well thanks to Chazelle.
Whiplash is bracing and uncomfortable viewing but tense, thought-provoking and highly original.
For all its overripe contrivance, you’ll leave the cinema with a spring in your step and a thump in your chest, eager to bang the drum for what deserves to be one of the year’s real word-of-mouth hits.
Whiplash: the film that puts the drummer in the limelight, at last
How Whiplash kills the cheesy pupil-mentor genre stone dead
Roll with the punches: Whiplash interview
Drummer Billy Brown on Whiplash: they don't beat it into you like that
Whiplash has put drummers in their rightful place as music's irreplaceable root
Damien Chazelle: 'Jazz is a very hostile type of music'
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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