the acting is OK, but that script! please. i can suspend disbelief up to a point, but come ON. the good looking thug with the heart of gold and the supposed talent to be a concert artist? hitting squatters over the head with a baseball bat one moment, agonizing over a bach fugue in the next scene? taking piano lessons from a recent emigrée who doesn't speak une licque of french? and oh, those tortured scenes when he's practicing that bach fugue over and over and over and just ... can't ... get it ... right ... i'm sorry. i'm a classical pianist and it's just not that anguished. i've never known anyone to pound their forehead on the keyboard in frustration. the music-making in this film is embarrassing. who did they have advising them, yanni? the ending is completely inane. he flubs the audition and marries the piano teacher. she's going to give a concert. he drops her off at the hall and runs into his father's Russian mobster murderer, whom he pummels within an inch of his life. just as he's about to blow his head off, he thinks the better of it, returns to the concert hall panting and dripping in blood, and takes his seat without anyone so much as batting an eye. i mean, i know the french are blasé, but they still don't like late arrivals.<br /><br />also, there isn't a single scene without a cigarette in everyone's mouth, all the time. i thought i was going to have emphysema by the end of the movie.<br /><br />clap trap. don't bother.