🍿 Tuner (2026)
Rating: 7/10
I liked this more than I expected, and less than the raves told me I would.
Leo Woodall carries this by doing less, making his painful hyperacusis feel incredibly real. Daniel Roher shoots New York with a dusty authenticity, while Dustin Hoffman brings much-needed warmth. That first safe job is the absolute peak, simply because you hear the pins he hears.
Things derail when Roher tries cramming a thriller, a mentorship drama, and a romance into one reel. The villains go cartoonish, Hoffman leaves early, and a lazy coincidence replaces actual writing. The story doesn’t resolve so much as stop, leaving me thinking about the sound instead of the heist.
Strengths:
- Woodall makes quiet concentration look like star power.
- The sound design is the point, not a garnish. Pain and pitch share the same mix.
- Hoffman gives Harry affection and frailty without begging for a speech.
- Woodall and Liu have an easy, unforced chemistry.
- The piano work and the first crack feel tactile, not montage-pretty.
Areas for Improvement:
- The third act drops the character work and sprints into nastier thriller territory.
- Too many genres. The crime plot is the least convincing of them.
- Hoffman is gone just as the movie needs that relationship most.
- The crew is written broader than everyone else on screen.
- The finish is a non-ending built on a coincidence I didn’t buy.
A technically sharp thriller dragged down by safe genre choices.
