Pianist supreme Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood) returns from retirement to play the gig of his life. Accompanied by his wife, Emma (Kerry Bishe) who has now taken the limelight in her own dazzling career adds evermore to the pressure of the return to the stage. However, Emma is the least of his issues when he finds that amongst the adoring crowd is Tom’s superfan (John Cussack) who manages to find solitude in a concert that’s played exactly his way, literally at gun point.

 

Adding to his pressure is the knowledge that at the request of his captor, the one piece he needs Selznick to play is one that ultimately cost him his career. The only thing to lose is his life, and those closest to him in a static chase to the final key which sees performer versus spectator in a tense chain of events.

 

Featuring an all-star cast it’s not difficult to see why ‘Grand Piano’ should be on the top of your collection and boasting a tense plot that rivals the likes of ‘Phone Booth’ and ‘Speed’ containing the action to the confines of one small, and public place, this should not be one to miss.

 

‘Grand Piano’ plays to its strengths with a gripping performance from Elijah Wood. His nervous disposition in Cussack’s cross hairs is gripping from the start. The tension however begins to lose grip as the plot unravels. As the motive of Selznick’s hostage situation comes to light, the plot not so much thickens but runs down the drain.

 

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Cussack’s lengths to get a key from the piano from which Wood is playing are so ridiculously set up that they even defy disbelief for a Mickey Mouse cartoon. The concept of unlocking a key to Selznick’s deceased mentors unclaimed millions from playing a song on the piano leads to the skull crackingly mad results of killing off friends and ally with meticulous effort to stage such a raid in public when he could have simply destroyed the piano and grabbed the key. If he’s willing to kill then surely a sledgehammer to a piano is no harm? Just saying.

 

Despite a pitch perfect performance from Wood. it’s difficult to stay attentive to a film that wants to be a grand masterpiece but feels more like a demo button on a keyboard. The idea is there and the tense setting is built to brilliance, it however falls apart once Cussack’s motive becomes apparent turning the finale of the film into an unwanted encore.

 

For those wanting a thriller with its brains left firmly at the door then there is some entertainment to be found, unfortunately knowing the potential and performance crafted within ‘Grand Piano’, this feels like it should have, and could have, been so much better with some fine tuning and effort extended to the script.