Review of Grand Piano (2013) by An N — 30 Nov 2014

In the vein of Buried and Phone Booth comes this taught 'one-location' thriller where a returning pianist protégé Tom Selznick (Lord of the Rings' Elijah Wood) is threatened with murder during his comeback concert with an assassin promising to shoot him if he gets just one note wrong in his performance.

With long tracking and panning shots, the director pulls us along into the movie with a slow build up before the tone switches to high stress as Wood's character realises his predicament. As a sniper's laser sight passes over his sheet music, the pianist comes to terms that both he and his wife in the audience are at the hands of this man as he desperately tries to figure a way out using his mobile phone and coded messages whilst completing the increasingly difficult tasks set by the voice in his ear.

The key to the film are a set of good performances (Wood plays the nervous yet intense musician with great flair) and a fast rhythm that ratchets up the stakes with creative editing - along with a fantastic score coming from Frodo's fingers himself.

With grand aspirations, Eugenio Mira tickles the audiences' ivories with sequence after sequence of rising tension and although the film knows its low-budget limitations, it also plays its strengths like a fine composer.

8/10 Midlands Movies Mike.