Leo Woodall stars as Niki in “Tuner” (Photo courtesy of Black Bear).
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(“Tuner” trailer courtesy of Black Bear)
Who knew a piano tuner could live such an exciting life?
Well, many piano tuners have a monotonous job that does not offer thrills and frills.
But Niki (Leo Woodall) proves that people should not judge piano-tuning books by their covers, and moviegoers should not judge a movie with an ordinary title because the film might be extraordinary.
The movie “Tuner” might be a double entendre.
One meaning of “Tuner” is obvious because Niki and Harry (Dustin Hoffman) are respected piano tuners in New York.
But if someone from the streets said that they were going to “tune” someone up, they probably meant they were going to physically assault them.
Both meanings would make sense in the “Tuner” as the movie goes from a regular, mundane movie to something totally unpredictable.
In “Tuner,” Niki and Harry have a father-son or uncle-nephew relationship even though they do not share the same bloodline.
Although the older man and his young assistant are not related, some friendships and work relationships become as thick as blood when there is a genuine affection and reverence involved.
Niki has made tuning pianos an art form.
He has an ear that many professional musicians would love to possess.
But for some reason, he does not use his gifted ears for anything more lucrative.
Despite their meager earnings as piano tuners, Niki and Harry rub elbows with some of the most affluent New Yorkers, like jazz legend Herbie Hancock.
The people who hire Harry and Niki are so wealthy that many own pianos as mere decoration or furniture.
Sometimes, the pianos go untouched for over a year.
But as Niki educates his elite clientele, pianos need tuning even if no one plays them for a long period of time.
While Harry and Niki are a team, Niki does much of the work.
In fact, Harry is more of the coach, and Niki is his future superstar player.
In “Tuner,” Harry educates Niki on the tricks of the trade of the piano tuning business.
He also advises Niki on health issues, seeing that Harry is getting up there in age.
Harry’s wife, Marla (Torah Feldshuh), constantly rides Harry about his diet.
But that does not mean that Harry always listens, often breaking his diet during his lunch break.
Harry seems more concerned about possible dementia than he is about his diet.
In “Tuner,” he places things in the wrong location all the time, then does not know where anything is when he needs it.
Instead of valuables in the family safe, Harry has placed his hearing aids in the safe.
And instead of keeping the combination the same, Harry changes the combination, then forgets what he changed it to.
No worries because Niki is great at fixing things.
Therefore, it probably will not take Niki long to figure out how to crack the combination to the safe.
In “Tuner,” Niki takes the safe home and learns how to break into it by watching online videos.
His golden ears make him just as great at breaking into safes as he is at tuning pianos.
But when distractions at a tuning job prohibit him from fixing a piano, he stumbles on an opportunity that can change his life forever.
While tuning a piano at a mansion, he cannot finish his job because of a drilling noise that he hears in another section of the sprawling estate.
Niki stumbles on members of the security team drilling into a safe.
The security team tells Niki that the owner wants certain things removed from the safe.
Niki wonders why the owner would not just give his security team the combination if they wanted their security team to remove certain items.
Nevertheless, Niki uses his newfound skill at cracking combinations to help the security team enter the locked safe.
Amazed by Niki’s talent, he is offered a job cracking safes throughout the city for nice sums of money.
Needing a quick infusion of cash, Niki accepts the new job, which changes his life and the lives of everyone around him, forever.
“Tuner” benefits from the star power of Hoffman.
The veteran actor is one of the greatest thespians to ever grace the big screen.
And although Hoffman is a big star to say the least, Woodall outshines one of the brightest stars ever.
The character Niki is so relatable that his story can become heartbreaking.
Niki is the one person who had all the potential in the world to achieve greatness.
But through no fault of their own are reduced to mediocrity.
The heartbreak becomes even worse when that person with potential is forced to watch others with less talent get the spotlight that they should have had.
In sports terms, Nicky is like LeBron James, a prodigy who many considered the chosen one.
But because life is often unfair, imagine James being forced to make a living repairing basketball goals at NBA arenas, as he watches less talented people make hundreds of millions of dollars.
That is the predicament that Niki finds himself in, especially when he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu).
In “Tuner,” moviegoers will relate to Harry also because many people know a person in the golden years of their life who wants to hold on to normalcy, even though health concerns are preventing that.
Unfortunately, “Tuner” begins slowly.
But when it picks up steam, the word excitement is an understatement.
Splendid is probably the better term.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
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