An intense, edge of your seat, drama about jazz music would appear about as plausible as a feel-good flick in a funeral parlour but that’s exactly what director Damien Chazelle achieves with ‘Whiplash’. Music school drummer Andrew Neimann (Miles Teller) is young and impressionable, determined to be the next big sensation of the jazz scene. Standing in his way is intimidating conductor/mentor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) whose exceptionally high standards lend him extreme methods of coaching. Are his unorthodox teaching techniques necessary means to an end or is he bitterly blocking the threshold to stardom because he himself feels he has underachieved?

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