"Whiplash" uses jazz music as a plot device - it has about as much to do with it as "Hackers" does with computers. I've never even played jazz (let alone at the level depicted in the film) and every five or ten minutes of watching it I found myself exclaiming incredulously at the seemingly ridiculous bullshit I was bearing witness to. My instincts were correct; the internet is rife with actual jazz musicians talking about this film's numerous creative liberties taken in service of its plot derivative of a sports flick.

Any opinion of actual jazz musicians formed on the basis of this film can be safely disregarded ab initio. Music snobs exist, but that movie is full of strawmen. A real shame as it was otherwise very well-executed but stuff like the finger-bleeding scene ripped straight from a Bryan Adams song does it no favors.