Warning there are spoilers!!!
Whiplash is a great movie directed by Damien Chazelle. This was his opening movie and it helped put him on the map with film nerds and then he made another big movie called La La Land.
His most recent movie Babylon wasn’t as popular as Whiplash and La La Land. Babylon only made only 63 million dollars at the box office with a budget of 110 million. Babylon is just too long, it’s also not very good, the story isn’t very interesting, and it’s easy to get lost as it is 3 hours long, and it drags on way too long. Whiplash and La La Land had a lot cheaper budgets as La La Land made 472 million dollars at the box office.
Seeing Whiplash in theaters was awesome. There is nothing like seeing a movie in theaters but you will never get the best experience unless you saw it when it came out.
Miles Teller is Andrew and J.K. Simmons is Fletcher; these are the two main characters as the plot centers around them. The plot of Whiplash is about Andrew’s progression as a drummer. Andrew is reserved and is a freshman at Shaffer music school which is the best music school in America. Fletcher is a prestigious conductor at Shaffer with a hot temper that wants to succeed.
Miles Teller is great in his role as this was essentially his breakout performance with Damien Chazelle. The intro is great as you get introduced to the main characters and as the story goes between the two actors it gets more interesting. Andrew joining Fletcher’s band is great as he joins as the backup to Carl, one of the other drummers. One of my favorite scenes is at the performance when Andrew loses Carl’s folder with the music and Andrew takes over for Whiplash.
As it progresses with Andrew gaining a bigger role in Fletcher band we see Andrew’s progression as a drummer. When Fletcher chooses Ryan, another drummer, to join the band it feels like a stabbing in the back to Andrew as he had worked so hard to become the lead drummer and he just had it taken from him.
My favorite scene in the movie is when Andrew is in a rush to get his sticks to play in the second concert and he crashes. In that moment I felt a race of emotions as he’s probably not going to be able to play and it made me think he wouldn’t get there in time. For him to play horrible and not do well after crashing just felt like Fletcher didn’t give him a chance as he clearly couldn’t play.
Another one of my favorite parts is the final scene with Andrew performing horribly in the first piece and you wonder if he will recover, but he does take the lead in the final piece and does a great job bringing the other members of the band in as he leads.
The ending does run a couple minutes too long. My mom and I both agreed on that but it’s still great. Overall Whiplash is an amazing movie not perfect and not a five star movie but it will hold up forever. 
