Movie Review – Whiplash

If Whiplash could be called a musical then this is the best musical I’ve ever seen. But I feel guilty for calling ‘Whiplash’ a musical. Any film which is called a musical, I find it to be a sort of escapism from a proper cinema. It’s like giving you an ice-cream saying that the cone would be good. You are eating ice-cream for ice-cream and not for cone. But sometimes cone woos you but you can’t keep searching for a perfect cone in ice cream, you search for a perfect ice cream.  That’s how Whiplash wins here hands down, it’s a complete product, it’s not good because of its music, but the music is as awesome as the film.

I kind of had a similar stage setting in my mind to that of Birdman, when I watched this film. May be the interiors, lighting etc. played a major part. But here I was overwhelmed because even though birdman was terrific, it had a fantasy element which draws it down when compared to the reality here.

Brilliant brilliant performance by this kid Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman, has a smile which could make any girl go weak on her knees and J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher could make any Lieutenant look themselves in the mirror and think twice about their attitude. Well rest all… well… where there anyone else.

Andrew is an absolute enigma, we get to know what he is and what he is into in the very first scene. When the movie opens, he takes a break and again starts drumming, the camera eases into him. All he could afford is that little break.

Once he gets the opportunity, I loved the way he talks about the music to the girl for whom all these mean nothing, even better was the breakup scene. Andrew in spite of being sad that she’d be leaving her, goes and does what needs to be done. Boy oh boy, isn’t he so me…

The film kept me in tenterhooks throughout, it was pulsating, riveting and every clichéd adjective you see at the back of DVD ending with an exclamatory mark but only that, here it’s not just an adjective but the story itself. Much credit needs to be given to the editing and cinematography and of course to the director to have carefully shot the scenes that he wanted. The final product is just amazing.

After a pretty long time I was able to watch film a film in TV and look how well it augured to be. Just before the climax my mom walked into the room and I asked her to wait for ten minutes, there were cuts and cuts and close ups and close ups and blood and sweat and rage and violence and she making face. Like how the cuts go from drums to Simmons and comes back within a flash, I was able to catch up with my mom’s face reaction in a fraction of second. She was making face and that was the success of the movie.