Whiplash

Dustin: 4.5 of 5 stars Nick: 5 of 5 stars Average: 4.75 of 5 stars (Tweety canary)

Dustin: Whiplash is a movie about how obsessively people can push themselves to succeed and asks whether there’s a line. The film stars Miles Teller as a conservatory student and J.K. Simmons as a psychotic teacher who uses abuse to push students to their limits.

Nick: The movie somehow manages to be the best thriller and best romantic comedy of the year. Romance coming from the love between a man and his instrument while humor spewing through J.K. Simmons’s performance. I obviously laughed through most of the abuse, though the film was still very tense and engaging.

Dustin: Teller’s and Simmons’s performances were what made this film. While it was well-crafted, the characters could have easily turned into trite cliches in lesser hands. Teller mixes awkwardness with surety in a way we believe his character. Simmons plays his character as something of a drill sergeant. He is like an American Gordon Ramsay. He naturally has a certain depth in his eyes that makes you believe there’s more to his character than his actions.

Nick: I was about to be upset when you said it was their performances that made this film, but you followed it up nicely. The film was so expertly crafted. The editing and cinematography is outstanding and engrosses me as much as either of the actors. But you’re right in the sense that with two lesser actors the film would certainly have been ruined. Simmons should get every part where he gets to be an asshole. This almost makes me want to check out his failed TV series where he plays a blind father and the humor is drawn from his being blind… hysterical.

Dustin: We both praised Teller earlier in our review of Divergent. I thought his performance almost saved the dismal and depressing *ahem* comedy 21 & Over. I recognized his talent before and have been waiting for a movie that was good enough for him. I went into this movie knowing nothing about it, and was excited when it opened and the camera moves slowly down a hall and into a studio where Teller is pounding away on a drum kit. I had high hopes, and this movie delivered.

Nick: Well I told you about The Spectacular Now in our review of Divergent, which is a film that made me recognize him and was also one of my favorite films of 2013. One question… is Teller involved somehow in a car crash in 21 & Over? For some reasons there always seems to be a random car crash in his films.

Dustin: I don’t remember. But it seems like there was a lot of drinking and driving around in 21 & Over, so there should have been. I didn’t see The Spectacular Now, but I remember you mentioned he played something of a jerk in it, as he had in 21 & Over and Divergent. Here he is playing a distinctly different role and was still very good, so he’s definitely not a one-trick pony. He reminds me of a young, much taller Dustin Hoffman.

Nick: I read today people think of him as a better acting version of Vince Vaughn, which I’d have to agree. He always plays a jerk who has some redeeming qualities, but that no one can see until later into the movie. Teller plays the same role here as in The Spectacular Now. I don’t mean that as a negative. He plays selfish teenagers who sees love as in object that gets in the way of whatever his goal may be. Nobody seems to get him in this movie because he is so shut off and focused on drumming he comes off as an asshole to everyone at some point or another.

Dustin: You mentioned the love element, and that’s my one and only criticism of this movie. I didn’t buy the romantic subplot at all. He asks out the cute girl who works at the movie theater, who he’d never had the confidence to talk to before. He’s visibly nervous (which tends to make women nervous as well), and she doesn’t even know his name. There was no rapport before. I had a hard time believing she would go on a date with him. Then, after a boring date at a pizza parlour, we see she likes him because she touches her foot against his. They break up at the next date. I realize the subplot was a device to show how he’s sacrificing everything for his drumming, but even as a device, it shouldn’t have been handled so lazily.

Nick: I thought it was handled well enough. She seems to be alone in a new city, and this cute boy who she has come into contact with many of times finally has the courage to ask her out. I agree if it was his first time ever talking to her and he was visibly nervous she would have definitely said no, but they do have some sort of rapport. They feel after talking they’re both family minded in the sense she feels homesick and he still goes to see movies with his dad all the time. I like that what is normally the subject (romance) is given the sub-plot and the object (drums) becomes the plot. In a different movie we would have seen him realize his drumming obsession and his need to please his professor as very unhealthy and he would have ended putting the drums away and ending up with the girl.  

Dustin: They might have had a passing rapport, but there was no indication she might have been interested in him. In one scene, he is entering the theater, and he turns around to get another look at her. She’s just staring ahead and doesn’t even notice him. It might have been more believable if they just got rid of the boy-meets-girl scene and started with them as a couple that had been together for a few months. Teller seeming nervous when he asked her out didn’t add anything to the character we couldn’t already infer about him (again, thanks to the strength of his performance).

Nick: But it wasn’t a boy-meets-girl scene--they had met many times before. I understand what you are saying, but saying it’s unrealistic is silly. I once knew a girl who said yes to anybody who would ask her out if she was single, because to her you never know, and first impressions can sometimes be happenstance. I find it believable this teenage girl in a new city, at a school where she has no idea of what she wants to major in, meets a cute awkward boy and is like sure lets go get some pizza. I like that it doesn’t get a lot of screen time either and it just jumps to when they break up since it’s the subplot, although it makes the subplot feel somewhat pointless, but I think that’s the jarring effect of taking something one is used to and flipping it upside down.

Dustin: Was that really Teller playing the drums?

Nick: Judging from the editing my assumption would be no, but he might have learned a little and played the easy things, but when the drumming gets intense the cuts are mostly of Teller’s face, or a POV shot from behind the drum set.

Dustin: I just looked it up. He wasn’t playing. He was acting!

Nick: ACTING!

I just think Teller likes to bleed.  He has an obsession with bleeding.  In every movie he bleeds a lot of his own blood.

Dustin: He certainly put his sweat and blood into this role. The final confrontation where he plays the drums and defies Simmons’s character is more satisfying than any “epic battle” Hollywood has thrown at us in recent years.

Nick: Woah Woah Woah... What about that one in TransFormers 4: Add subtitle here, where this one robot is fighting another robot and there’s clanking and stuff and ol’ Mark Wahlberg is running around and more stuff? That was pretttttty good.

Dustin: You mean Trans4mers? Sadly, I don’t remember much about that movie except Mark Wahlberg and robot dinosaur action figure. But we digress.

Nick: The syncopation between the music and the editing/cinematography is so stellar especially in that climactic scene. Whenever the horns blow, there they are, and then drum solo BAM there’s young’n Teller slappin’ them cowhides and whenever Old Man Simmons waves his hands dramatically you know its all about to go down.

Dustin: In conclusion, go see Whiplash while it is still in your art house theaters!