Shoot the Piano Player manages to mold two separate moods into one. It is French New Wave mixed with film noir. It can be powerfully dramatic and poignant (the extended flashback to Charlie's earlier life as a concert pianist) or deliriously witty and fun (the car ride with Charlie, Lena, and the two bad guys). And it switches effortlessly between the two extremes. I love the scene where Charlie is walking Lena home and is contemplating how he should ask her out for a drink. He is so caught up in his thoughts that when he finds the right way of asking, she's already left without him even realizing it. It's this sense of humor when it comes to film styles (specifically film noir's voice-over narration) that makes this movie stand out. Truffaut understands film intimately and loves it enough to playfully twist it around for his own purposes.
However, there are some flaws. Being French New Wave, the technical skills are extremely lacking. The sound is poor and the camerawork is amateurish. There is no lighting; some shots are almost pure black, despite there being two people in the frame. Not that I expected any of these to be positive aspects of the movie. The reason I am not giving this a higher rating is that I walked away afterwards and just said, basically, now what? What did I get out of it? It was a difficult question to answer. It is fun though, and very much recommended.IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0054389/