Tuner – Review

Niki White (Woodall) suffers from “hyperacusis” which means he suffers from loud noises and wears noise dampening buds in his ears due to the loud world and uncontrolled acoustic environments. Despite this fact, he has sensitive and perfect hearing which he utilizes this for a career in piano tuning, where he works with industry expert Harry Horowitz (Hoffman). The pair is a decent duo, hitting appointments in a panel van advertising “Harry Horowitz’s Fine Piano Tune & Repair” services.

As Harry accidentally locks his hearing aid in his personal safe, AND has forgotten the combo, things begin to get quite interesting plot wise. Niki takes Harry’s safe home, hits up some YouTube videos, and begins to use his extremely sensitive and strong hearing skills to listen to the dial clicks and try to crack it open. Harry needs his hearing aids after all!

This is just the tip of the iceberg for an interesting script delivered in Tuner. With many fun elements delivered during its setup chapters the good news is the film delivers on its promises and pays off as it winds during a nicely paced albeit slower criminal plot.

Thankfully Tuner’s story isn’t the only well delivered element in the film, as the characters aren’t that bad either across the board. While the main character is definitely the most developed, most all the others are pretty well fleshed out also, even if only in bit roles. Harry is a classic boss role and fun character for Hoffman who is always good to see. The romance interest Ruthie (Liu) is intelligent, realistic, talented and layered. Even some of the other and “darker” characters introduced as the plot progresses have humanizing personality traits.

The film is a well put together film that weaves music and safe cracking together in a very interesting way. Strong dialogue, relatable characters and a fun criminal idea make for a melodious start in Tuner which delivers the goods.