Grand Piano (2013) Reviews

• Great premise, uninspired result

  reev02013-10-16

  A film that has clearly started with a high concept - like Speed but playing a piano rather than driving a bus - and the plot has been fitted round that. Having started from that fairly ludicrous premise, you might hope that the film would either embrace it and not take itself seriously, or find clever twists to add. Unfortunately it does neither. It's short enough to avoid being boring, and competently shot and acted, but really has very little to offer. It's hard to think of the target audience for this - a run of the mill thriller based around classical music? - and I am mystified by its inclusion at the London Film Festival.

• Thriller, horror, suspenseful, none of the above!

  markhopski2013-10-11

  My wife and I just saw this at the Sitges Festival and were unfortunately very disappointed in the movie. Elijah Wood is the focal point of the film and frankly, the script nor his ability were able to carry the movie to an even reasonable level of interest for us (let alone tension, suspense or anything near the edge of the seat). A critic stated this is Speed but with a piano. I say it is Speed at the relative pace of a piano. This really comes down to the story at hand and can a single scene movie keep someone interested to the point of being called a thriller? I really do not believe so and especially feel that way after seeing the film. The movie was just flat out boring. Very disappointing start to the SFF.

• A plot which never started, didn't develop and ended spiritlessly

  dmustard-501-8278142013-10-16

  I kept on expecting something to happen. It didn't. The plot was thin to the point of idiot transparency. The build-up was muddled and didn't have a great deal to offer. You just couldn't understand why this main character was actually going to all the bother of performing again. And coincidentally he didn't. The plot just didn't develop. It started with the basic bones of the film story and just stuck there. No great suspense moments, no breath-holding divulgences, no way was the audience anxious for any of the characters' safety. It just deadlined into nothingness. The final denouement (read the threatened consequence of the film) had no purpose either. The resulting closure of the film happened as if the director, writer and financiers had become bored with it as well and the plug was pulled firmly. I say don't bother unless you are a die-hard masochist. Shame, but Mr. Wood is better in a hairy costume, hooves and a tail. He doesn't deliver and my favourite in the whole entire cast was the Piano itself. Even The Piano looked embarrassed.

• An hour i'll never get back

  MarkoVelasevic2015-05-20

  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.

• One of those movies that should have never been made.

  winickj-797-809152014-03-23

  I love movies about music. Dreyfuss in The Competition, now that's a good movie. I saw a Late Quartet, and they did the best they could with non musicians. In this debacle I was ready to hit the stop button within minutes. When you shoot a movie about cops, you hire a cop as a consultant. That guy tells you that the holster goes around your waist, and not around your head. Medical shows hire doctors and nurses, military shows hire ex-military. This debacle must have hired a doctor, nurse, cop or ex-military to consult on the musical accuracy as they could have not gotten it more wrong. First off, it's a frickin pianist, not a piano player, trained classical musicians don't refer to themselves as piano players. Second, you need only goto youtube to figure out where the piano goes when performing with an orchestra. Its not on a stage behind, its right next to the conductor. If you were making a movie about baseball would you put the catcher in the outfield??? c'mon frigging do some homework before you make a film about music. As far as the rest of it, after he got up during the performance and left the stage the movie lost the sliver of credibility it had left. If you want to suspend disbelief, combine this with Gravity and have the jerk off pianist playing in outer space while George Clooney conducts. Just because the average person doesn't know what is correct doesn't give the film maker license to spit in the face of the musical world.