If sound makes up more than half of the movie experience then Grand Piano is as simple of a concept as it is brilliant. In Grand Piano the worlds greatest concert pianist is set to make his return to the grand stage after freezing and failing an epic piece a few years prior. He plans to make his return while playing the piano of his recently deceased mentor and this is where the movie finds the inspiration for its title. However someone has scribbled down threats in his notes and he is now forced to play every note perfectly if he wishes to stay alive.Elijah Wood plays the main part brilliantly even though he seldom has anyone to act off of and his energy in playing the piano shines through and most of the time comes of as real rather than fake. Using the score in a two-fold meaning, both as a story mechanism and as a suspension builder, works great most of the time and it really showcases the talent behind the movie.Much like many other movies that are based around simple concept or locations it struggles to keep things interesting throughout the entire running time and this plus some stereotypical minor characters unfortunately keeps the movie from being as great as it could have been. But as it stands its a unique, often thrilling, movie that dares to think outside of the box.

My father alerted me to this movie, which he found to be quite ridiculous. After some searching, I found a copy and watched it for myself. And I did find it to indeed be quite silly for the most part. It starts off okay, the first twenty-five minutes or so being a little dull and padded out but otherwise competent. Then when Wood first discovers on stage in front of an audience that he and his wife are in trouble, the movie starts to be quite unbelievable. What the Cusack character has planned and is executing is quite outlandish - there had to be easier ways to get to what he was wanting! As for what he wants, the explanation for it is somewhat garbled and short - I had to do some research after watching the movie to confirm the theory I eventually had in my mind. The movie is never dull, and it has some skillful direction (some great camera movements here), but ultimately it becomes quite unbelievable. Cusack fans might want to be warned that you mostly just hear and not see him in the movie. And the fact the closing credits last a whopping twelve minutes suggest the filmmakers themselves realized they had a thin story here and had to pad things out even further.

Having been in retirement for the past 5 years, stage-fright suffering pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood) decides to return to the stage to perform a few recitals as part of a comeback. However, he soon learns that there is an assassin in the auditorium who will shoot him if he misses a note.I generally watch a lot of films blind now and tend to only look at the rating after I've watched a film. I do consider myself a bit of a cynic and I usually find that my own rating comes in lower than the average user IMDb rating, but man I was wrong with this film. I expected it to be at least 7.0, but was shocked that it only has an IMDb rating of 5.9. Really?? Yes if we're totally honest the plot line isn't entirely original - it reminded me a lot of Phone Booth, but I'm prepared to look past that and just judge this film on how much it entertained me and it did that in bucket loads. Elijah Wood is part of the success here as he's already jittery and nervous before he even enters the Auditorium (which isn't helped by him possibly receiving the worst pep talk ever prior to arriving at the Auditorium). Once Tom arrives at the Auditorium the suspense rarely lets up and we're immediately plunged into a psychological battle of wits between Tom and the would be assassin. I've never been a huge fan of Elijah Wood, but he was excellent here and is really convincing in his respective role and rarely puts a foot wrong. In terms of plotting, I think what gives this film a slight edge over Phone Booth is that the assassins motivations are kept from the audience for most of the running time and this is just one hook that makes it very easy to get involved in the story. The assassins motives do become clear and are perhaps more simplistic than you may think.There are a couple of minor blots with this film and the first obvious problem is unoriginality (but when a film is this intense and involving that really doesn't bother me that much). Character development is perhaps a little sparse, but again who really cares when a film is this entertaining? Other than that though, I'm struggling to find anything else that I didn't like about this film.Having watched Whiplash recently and not liking it very much I was pleasantly surprised that the same person who penned this film penned Whiplash a year later. Whereas Whiplash was a rather repetitive, obnoxious, overrated film with a totally ridiculous premise. Grand Piano is a massively underrated thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining film with a more believable premise. It's rare that I side with the critics, but I think they're right in mostly praising this film as it is a very entertaining film. Ignore the 5.9 rating - it's a much better film than that rating suggests.

This is my first review and at the same time the first time i reached the state of complete numbness or something opposite of nirvana. The movie starts of kinda dull, you've just met some kind of eccentric pianist who is not well adjusted to XXI century, don't know about you but it just goes in "it's kinda cliché" direction, and it is a writer's and director's job to prove us wrong, but they didn't. Story's not unique, and protagonist is this young fella who's some kind of genius or something, the only person alive who can play what is known as the hardest piece ever to be played. He starts playing and realizes that he's on gunpoint of a guy who doesn't want him to miss a note or he'll die, or his lovely wife. That strange lunatic man does that just because he and musician who owned that piano put a key in a piano, and the only way to get the key is to play the last 4 tablatures right, is this a joke or what? I was laughing, i'm not kidding. Well the whole story is annoying and boring, and i was in shock how lame it was, he didn't even use those piano pedals but you hear it in music he produces. That's all just an average bad movie, but what struck me the most in this piece of garbage was ending, when he goes in the truck to play the last four tablatures of that piece on broken piano and goddamn as you can predict he played it and as he disappointedly turned around and tried to get out, he hears lock and key falling. And there goes 10 minutes or so of credits, i mean what the hell?If you want to see an enlightening movie, don't watch this, but if you want to torture yourself just go ahead, this is a movie for you.