Leo Woodall's 107-Minute Heist Movie Is Officially Paramount's Biggest Streaming Hit

Audiences who missed out on crime thriller "Tuner" in theaters are making up for that mistake now; the film arrived on Paramount+ and was the service's most streamed film as of September 24.

Directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher making his narrative feature debut, "Tuner" stars Leo Woodall as Niki White. Niki is a former piano prodigy whose concert dreams became impossible when he developed hyperacusis (a heightened, painful sensitivity to sound). Currently, Niki works as a piano tuner for his family friend Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman). If you watch the opening minutes of "Tuner," unaware of its premise, you might think you've stumbled onto a dramedy and late career vehicle for Hoffman about a near-retirement piano tuner and his protege. 

But one day, while Harry is out sick, Niki is tuning a piano alone for a wealthy client. He discovers some security workers are actually robbing the place — and their loud efforts to break into a safe are disturbing Niki's own work. Instead of calling the police, Niki uses his ultra-sensitive hearing to unlock the safe for them. Why? Seemingly just to be free of the noise and because he won't lose any sleep over rich people being fractionally less rich.

When Harry has a heart attack and medical bills pile up, Niki signs up with the thieves full-time, using his aptitude for pitch to make some "real money." The narrative structure of "Tuner" is admittedly a bit standard (don't expect any of the twists to make your jaw drop), but the premise is innovative. The film throws the crime and classical music worlds together, a rare combo, and with a strong streak of romance as Niki falls for aspiring classical composer Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu).

"Crime thriller set in New York City" and "Dustin Hoffman" may have you thinking that you're in for a '70s throwback. "Tuner" is refreshingly down to earth and character-focused like a New Hollywood movie, for sure. But it's also nowhere near cynical enough to truly stand as a companion piece to, say, Hoffman's acclaimed '70s thriller "Marathon Man." The closer comparison is "Rain Man," containing Hoffman's Oscar-winning performance as an autistic savant. Niki, a piano genius held back by a medical condition, parallels Hoffman's "Rain Man" character Raymond Babbitt. 

To that point, Hoffman might be there to entice cinephiles, but Leo Woodall carries the movie. (Note that Harry, incapacitated, mostly vanishes after Act 1.) "Tuner" was not his only standout performance this year, either. In the Anthony Bourdain biopic "Tony," Woodall steals the show as Sal, a charismatic dirtbag — brawny and tattooed, Sal has a lot of surface similarities to the man Tony Bourdain became, but without any of the empathy. 

Between "Tuner" and "Tony," I'm ready to make the call: Leo Woodall has got the juice. I have not seen his breakout performances on "The White Lotus" Season 2 or in the Netflix romantic drama "One Day," granted. His supporting turn in "Nuremberg" mostly passed over me, too, to the point I didn't recognize him when I saw "Tuner." (In fairness, disappearing in memory is easy to happen when you're in a movie with a scenery chewing Russell Crowe as Hitler's no. 2 guy Hermann Göring.) But between the quiet confidence he projects as Niki, like an actor who's already an experienced leading man, and his scene-stealing as Sal, he's clearly an actor with range — and I'm excited to see how he keeps testing that range.