After his stints winning hearts on TV in Netflix’s One Day and the second season of The White Lotus, Leo Woodall gets to graduate to big screen leading man status in Tuner, a consciously old-school New York crime thriller that ends up fitting him like a glove. As Niki, a piano tuner with a hearing condition that makes him hyper-aware of even the smallest sounds (a skill that proves itself even more useful for safecracking than keeping perfect pitch), he’s the effortlessly charming heart of documentarian Daniel Roher’s solid fiction debut. It’s the kind of performance that generally spells big things for a young actor’s future, grounding a story that starts very fun but gradually loses itself to ludicrous contrivances.
Roher paces his opening act immaculately. There’s a highly satisfying rhythm; we meet Niki and his mentor/father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman in his most high profile role in nearly a decade), he meets and falls for pianist and composer Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), he falls in with an intimidating Israeli crew who use his skills to silently rob the safes of the suburban rich. It’s efficient and exciting, the romance between Niki and Ruthie just as involving and carefully drawn as the heists, which escalate nicely in thrill from job to job.
The wheels come off as the ending approaches, though, almost the entire third act relying on unconvincing coincidences and Niki making the most illogical possible choice in every single situation just to artificially raise the stakes. It’s genuinely frustrating to watch the careful building blocks of the film’s first two thirds just get kicked over for a much more generic ‘crime doesn’t pay’ finale. Woodall and Liu remain compelling (Hoffman is confined to a hospital bed for most of the story after Harry has a stroke), and Roher does well making Niki’s quasi-mobster employers more than just sneering villains, but the drop-off in writing quality is startling.
It is all pulled off in unfussily slick style, a jazzy soundtrack fuelling a lot of montage-heavy storytelling and while it is absolutely a 21st Century story (one heist is reliant on FaceTime communication, for example), Tuner takes all the opportunities it can to hearken back to its various ‘70s inspirations. A lot of this is down to the presence of Hoffman and the design of Harry’s home, a lower-middle-class old-school Jewish apartment you could happily stick in any decade, and Roher pays tribute to this by having Niki drive around with a custom-made Hoffman bobblehead on his dashboard, maybe my favourite single prop in any film this year.
Ultimately, though, this is Woodall’s show. A posh London boy in life, he’s completely convincing as a hardscrabble New Yorker of limited financial means, a showcase which should open some interesting doors going forward (he was even rumoured to be playing a younger Aragorn in the upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel before Jamie Dornan got the part). While it can’t quite keep perfect pitch in its story, Tuner’s fine cast and great opening hour make it easy and breezy fun.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 