TUNER
- Colin Fraser
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
THREE STARS Niki has a hearing condition which makes the everyday difficult, but tuning pianos (and cracking safes) is a cinch!
THRILLER US English #TUNER Starring Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman
TUNER quickly establishes its slightly offbeat premise with such assurance that there’s never much temptation to resist it. Leo Woodall plays Niki White, a gifted young piano tuner apprenticed to veteran craftsman Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman), whose advancing age and fading hearing have left him increasingly reliant on his protégé. Niki’s own unusually acute hearing (for protection he wears ear plugs when he’s not wearing headphones) is treated less as a superpower than an odd medical condition, one that attracts the attention of a ‘security company’ who realise his remarkable hearing makes him remarkably useful at opening safes.
Why would he do this? Because Harry has a heart attack and his wife Ruthie can’t afford the hospital bills. Niki turns Robin Hood and unbeknownst to either takes up with the merry security men. He’s a good thief, right, although before long the quiet business of tuning pianos in expensive Manhattan apartments bleeds into a noisy criminal enterprise.
TUNDER is an entertaining thriller with a brisk pace and lightly mischievous tone that avoids any temptation to inflate into something profound. It’s not that kind of film. While the screenplay occasionally relies on narrative convenience there’s enough easygoing charm to smooth over the bumps. It plays in a satisfying key throughout, even if it never quite reaches crescendo.
Once Niki proves himself, the criminal gang begins exploiting his skillset for larger and riskier jobs. Ruthie grows increasingly suspicious of the young man’s evasiveness while Niki himself starts to realise that his ‘gift’ may be more burden than blessing. In the hope of balancing his complicated life, he complicates it further by attempting a romance with music student Ruthie (a compelling Havana Rose Liu).
Thankfully TUNER wears any implausibility lightly enough that it rarely becomes a problem. Niki is written with a distinctly soft-edged quality that the film leans on more than it interrogates. He is, in effect, a thief, but one carefully framed as morally tolerable because his targets are wealthy clients unlikely to miss the loss, and because the proceeds are put to good. It’s an ethical alibi we’re expected to accept without too much scrutiny or discomfort.
And we do as Roher distracts us with character interplay and gentle tension over hard-edged suspense. It is pleasingly old fashioned under its modern dress. Leo Woodall does much of the heavy lifting, giving Niki enough nervous intelligence and emotional restraint that keeps everything grounded when the plot threatens to float away entirely. Hoffman is also good value, clearly enjoying himself from a hospital bed, unaware of the chaos he’s unleashed.
TUNER will not alter the course of cinema, nor does it pretend otherwise, but for audiences after an undemanding yet polished couple of hours at the movies, it more than does the job.
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