This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Flo Lieb’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Why this movie got hyped the way it got is totally beyond me. It has a screenplay that could have been written by a six-year-old.
So some dude thought it would be great to do a little Full Metal Jacket in a band room. Nothing works the charm as calling people by derogatory homosexual slurs. Maybe they should do it more in every office across the country. "Hey Petersen, you faggot, where are the statistics I ordered, you cocksucker" Economy would rise through the roof.
Maybe it just works if the guy slurring at you looks like a walking and talking penis though. You gotta give it to J.K. Simmons who delivers an ordinary J.K. Simmons performance. Which doesn't mean it is bad. But you could therefore give that guy an Academy Award for any of his films. He's just that good without excelling here.
What makes a good teacher though? I tell you. If you stop playing an instrument for months, work at a coffee shop and then enter a stage out of the blue to play with an ensemble who you've never practiced with. That's how you become a musical legend who will be remembered forever. Even if your date has no idea who you're talking about if you take her to a cheap ass New York pizza place that plays Jazz music for some reason. (Because I guess..why not?)
That romantic relationship by the way was my favorite part. Have the kid ask a girl out on a date only so he can sacrifice "his relationship" (meaning a girl he went out once) the next time we see them for no reason at all for his "career" even though his situation hasn't changed a bit since the time he asked her out in the first place. And guess what? That's the girl he'll be calling at the end because he really liked her – because we already saw her in three frames.
This movie is just a joke with no original plot at all and characters that are caricatures. A classic car crash from the left while he was picking up his drum sticks and he enters the stage after crawling out of his rental wreck to play in a bloody suit and then attacks his teacher who doesn't acknowledge any of that, just that his playing was off – ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDIN' ME?!
And how is that kid going pro if every fucking set he plays will lead to him bleeding all over his instrument like Jesus when whiplashed (see what I did there?) by the bloody Romans? How many gigs can you play like that before you get arthritis or fucked up scars? I know, I know, the only thing that matters is if you manage to be talked about at dinner tables in decades to come. Like Charlie Parker. Although I wonder how many people who are not into jazz know who Charlie Parker is anyway.
Holy shit, to paraphrase the great Dr. Percival Cox: I'm gagging and vomiting at the same time. I'm gavomiting.