By George & Josh Bate
Leo Woodall has had a meteoric rise to stardom in the last few years. He burst onto the scene with his supporting role in the second season of The White Lotus, playing a character full of secrets (“You fuck your uncle?!?). From there, Woodall has gone on to appear in the Netflix series One Day, the Apple TV+ title Prime Target, and the WWII drama Nuremberg. Now, for the first time, Woodall takes centerstage as the protagonist for a feature film, one that exists at the intersection of fascinating character study and unconventional heist thriller.
Tuner follows Niki (Woodall), a young piano tuning apprentice who works alongside his mentor Harry (Dustin Hoffman). Their worlds are turned upside down when Harry, who’s showing signs of dementia, suffers a bad fall, forcing Niki to work for a crime organization as a way to pay off Harry’s medical bills. Due to a hearing condition which makes his ears extremely sensitive (to the point of pain at even low level noises), Niki is used by the criminal group to crack safes. Things go well for a time before the reality of living a life of crime begins to kick in, putting Niki and his loved ones in peril.
Woodall appears in almost every scene in Tuner and, unlike much of the English actor’s prior work, plays a character that serves as the focal point of the entire story. Dustin Hoffman’s ailing Harry exists as Niki’s motivation, but it’s Niki who remains central throughout. This places quite a bit of pressure on Woodall to deliver a performance that matches his character’s importance to the story, and the English actor follows through with this task greatly. His performance can be best characterized as subtle, as Niki is a character who often remains quiet and leaves his emotion to conveyed through his mannerisms and facial expressions. In the absence of any narration, Woodall, delivering lines from Daniel Roher and Robert Ramsey’s sharp script, excellently ensures that the viewer knows and feels exactly what’s going through Niki’s head. In turn, Tuner excels as a unique character piece, as much as it is an entertaining crime thriller.
Dustin Hoffman, meanwhile, plays a role to the film’s plot, although his casting proves to be somewhat of a distraction. Although his career has slowed down significantly since 2017, the Academy Award winner has continued to appear in projects sporadically. Tuner, however, represents one of his more significant roles in recent years. On paper, it appears that Hoffman’s character may be the heart of the film, as it his illness that spurs the plot into gear and forces Woodall’s protagonist into a life of thievery. Unfortunately, Hoffman’s scenes largely fall flat and prevent the film from reaching the emotional heights it could have aimed for.
As an unconventional heist film, Tuner does away with many of the genre’s most popular tropes. For one, there’s no “big heist,” or a job that the characters spend significant time preparing for. Rather, each heist or mission exists in isolation, all incrementally adding to Niki’s story in some way. This unique structure to a heist film allows Roher’s movie to break away from the predictable and overused elements of the genre. As a result, Tuner once again feels like a compelling character drama first and a crime thriller second.
That is not to say that the crime thriller element don’t work. In fact, they excel. Coupled with a clever sense of humor and well-developed romantic interest played by Havana Rose Liu, when things inevitably come crashing down for Niki, the stakes are felt. But none of that would matter without a compelling turn from Woodall to ensure that the twists and turns of his criminal journey and experience with a disability that prevents him from playing piano always warrant investment from the audience.
VERDICT: 8/10
Tuner takes advantage of a sharp, briskly paced script and largely overcomes tropes of the oversaturated heist genre to tell a story that compels both as an interesting character piece and tense crime thriller. Leo Woodall rises to the occasion by delivering a performance that is bound to prove to the broader industry that he is a lead that can engage, intrigue, and easily earn audience empathy. Dustin Hoffman’s stiff acting prevents the film from reaching its intended emotional heights, although a clever sense of humor, incredible sound design, and sweet romance involving Woodall and Havana Rose Liu’s character keep the film afloat. Tuner may not reinvent the heist genre, but it surely plays a different tune that most heist movies.