Film Review: Tuner

Tuner
Director: Daniel Roger
English Breakfast Productions
In Theaters: 05.29.2026

A thriller is like a piano, in that no matter how well crafted it is, it all comes down to the player, whether it’s Glenn Gould playing Bach‘s Goldberg Variations or Harrison Ford looking for the one-armed man who killed his wife. Tuner is made with a lot of skill, but it’s the central performance that brings it to life.

Niki White (Leo Woodall, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Nuremberg) possesses an ear so precise it once promised a career on the concert stage. Instead, extreme sensitivity to sound has left him repairing pianos for the city’s elite alongside his aging mentor, Harry Horowitz (two-time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman, Kramer vs. Kramer, Rain Man). Barely staying afloat financially, Niki is drawn into a dangerous criminal scheme when thieves realize his uncanny ability to detect the hidden mechanics of safes as easily as the flaws in a piano string. As the jobs grow riskier, Niki tries to balance his secret life, his blossoming romance with music student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu, Bottoms, Her Private Hell) and his devotion to Harry, whose health is rapidly declining. What begins as a desperate attempt to help those he cares about soon threatens to consume everything he still hopes to preserve.

Director Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for the documentary Navalny, makes a worthy narrative feature debut with Tuner, and the film moves with crisp pacing and sharp editing that keep the tension simmering even in quieter character moments, allowing every decision and revelation to land with weight. Roher also makes the safe-cracking sequences irresistibly lively and entertaining early on, capturing the rush Niki feels as he first discovers his unusual talent and the seductive thrill of the criminal world opening up around him. As the story progresses and the consequences grow more dangerous, those same sequences become bitingly tense, transforming moments of excitement into scenes loaded with anxiety and risk. Roher never loses sight of the human element beneath the thriller mechanics, giving the story emotional stakes that make the danger feel immediate and personal. The relationships at the center of the film are drawn with enough warmth and vulnerability that viewers become invested in what happens to these characters long before the suspense reaches its peak.

Woodall’s combination of low-key naturalism and magnetism results in a character that you’re rooting for the second he appears on screen. Tuner is the kind of thriller that requires a lead who is distinct and fully formed, yet also relatably human enough that the audience can effectively become the character for the runtime of the film, and Woodall is exactly the leading man that Hollywood needs right now. Liu continues to be a captivating screen presence, but she’s such a uniquely stunning woman that too often in the past, she’s been confined to more distant characters you don’t really get to know. Ruthie is a perfect role for her that utilizes her almost ethereal beauty in introducing the character, but allows her to stay grounded and to flesh out the character and make it her own. It almost feels unnecessary to say that Hoffman is perfect, but it’s just so intoxicating to see him in a great movie again, even if it’s in a smaller, supporting role.

Tuner is a wonderfully entertaining film with rhythm and energy that sweeps you up like a great piece of music perfectly played and is likely to stand out as one of the best grown thrillers of the summer. There’s not a lot of flashiness and no big effects on display, just great characters put into situations that are believable and involving, and Tuner never hits a false note. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews by Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: Pressure
Film Review: The Mandalorian and Grogu

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