Review of Whiplash (2014) by Dan T — 10 Mar 2016

What's wrong with the movie 'WHIPLASH'...? Oh, let me count the ways...

******SPOILERS******.

1 - The Charlie Parker "cymbal" story was quite a bit conflated.

2 - If you're drumming "so hard" that you bleed massively *and* often, you're doing it wrong.

3 - Buddy Rich as the sole inspiration? All the musicians and music enthusiasts I know love so much music, not just one thing / one artist. Even limited to jazz drumming, why not *also* Max Roach, Art Blakey, jo Jones (of Charlie Parker "cymbal" tossing fame), or a cadre of other great drummers past and present?

4 - Drumming fast and hard shown in the movie as some sort of pinnacle is a highly odd choice for a movie about jazz. In reality, the great drummers make it look effortless.

5 - You can probably only punch through a snare head if you've got razor knuckles or the snare is a toy snare made of vellum or something.

6 - What is the motive for Fletcher (teacher) to aim to sabotage his own performance simply to teach the kid drummer a lesson?

7 - Similarly, what is the motive for putting other players in the band at risk as well? And the motive for having a trio of drummers "hard play off" for 3+ hours while the rest of the band hung out in the lobby?

8 - How on earth could someone in a t-bone car crash with a truck get out and run to your performance and still play even remotely in time?

9 - How on earth would a competition let you walk in all bloody like you're a zombie (or walked away from a t-bone crash with a truck) and then still play?

10 - Do drummers even have page turners?

11 - As an experienced core drummer, why would you let your very new underling mess with your kit? Moreso, why would you specifically tell him to tune it for you?

12 - A drummer who didn't make the cut because he couldn't remember a tune beats by heart? Um... even if he practiced it for hours and hours with the band?

13 - A "conductor" yelling "not my tempo!!" continually and slapping a student (also continually) meant he should've been fired far earlier.

14 - Rental car randomly closed at 5pm, but you get them to re-open for you, but you leave your sticks in the lobby and then when you go back 10 minutes later, presumably 20 minutes after they close, you just simply walk in and grab your sticks where you left them.

Not implausible, but odd choices for the sake of telling a story that could have been better told with more accurate depictions of things.

What they got right...

1 - "Good job" is probably one of the worst things you can tell someone who's put their all into anything.

2 - It's good that he didn't get the girl. He was an idiot.