The high concept — boot camp at a music conservatory with J.K. Simmons doing a displaced R. Lee Ermey — gets this pretty far right out of the gate. For about 20 or 30 intense, Simmons-driven minutes, Whiplash feels like one of the best films of the year. It’s the rest of the picture that has a problem, with contrivance piled upon story-driving contrivance so high that the film lacks a believable ground-level view of young drummer Andrew’s (Miles Teller) struggle toward expertise and mastery. Instead, we see a few sessions where he works under the sadistic tutelage of bandleader Terence Fletcher, who teases out his students’ weaknesses in order to pounce on them and humiliate them over what he insists are their shortcomings.

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