Contains spoilers
*****
The sound of music and safe tumblersNiki White's ears have the Midas touch. An extraordinary gift, overplayed, turns out to be his downfall. Played by the excellent Leo Woodall, Niki’s ultra-sensitive hearing and perfect pitch make him an incomparable piano tuner and, wait for it, safe breaker. His skill satisfies the ultra-rich, unmusical piano-owning socialites and mansioneers of New York, but is even more highly rewarded by Uri (Lior Riaz) in the criminal underworld.
Uri, in broken but forceful English, runs a security business that protects the homes of the wealthy, except that he doesn’t. It’s far more profitable to use the trust afforded by his multi-millionaire clients to access their vacant homes, break open their safes, and pocket a few items. Niki’s superhuman hearing gift enables him to crack the safe codes.
Niki, essentially a good guy, needs the money to pay for his ailing, aged boss Harry Horowitz’s healthcare. Harry, likeable, loved by all, is played with the charm and charisma that we have come to expect from Dustin Hoffman, but his role, after the delightful opening scenes, comes mostly in cameo from a hospital bed. Woodall takes the lead, in overalls and van, acting as the servant to the wealthy in an artistic realm where, as a young boy, he once aspired to be master.
Niki travels between sensitive, romantic episodes with Ruthie (Havana Rose Lui), laced with music and high culture, and tension-filled, unwilling heists with the foul-mouthed, uncompromising Uri and his colleagues. At some point in the narrative, these two channels will collide, and probably ruin the musical romance.
There is, initially, something likeable about Uri, something of Gru in Despicable Me. He justifies his theft with cod philosophies, Robin Hood style, and at one point proposes to Niki that their crime succeeds thanks to ‘the law of diminished marginal utility’. They steal from people who are so rich that minor extractions matter little, or go unnoticed. Uri’s propensity to smile like a villain carries echoes of Telly Savalas, but slightly more evil. The course of events turns distinctly unpleasant once another group, a Chinese family gang, sub contracts Uri’s squad for a heist that is doomed to fail. Niki discovers that, once in, you can’t get out. And that the smiling villains can also be cruel and sadistic beyond measure.
The choice of foreign, or ethnic minority groups as the real villains of the piece, thuggish and amoral, fleecing affluent and benevolent citizens, intimidating and subverting a talented, decent young man, may raise eyebrows, or even voices in liberal quarters. It was a brave, or a culturally insensitive casting decision, depending on one's perspective. The trump card in persuading the brutal Uri to compromise and save Niki's skin is 'the holocaust watch'. No one should steal one, his comrade says. It is beyond argument. Even to Uri.
Music, and particularly its sound, including silence and distorted sound, are the threads that hold this narrative together. Niki’s early relationship with Ruthie develops beautifully as they sit at the piano, she as composer pianist, he as tuner who could have been an even better pianist.
On the darker side, Niki’s physical and mental agonies are laid bare to us, notably in a scene where he writhes in agony on the floor alongside suffocating, gyrating fish from a shattered aquarium. Like a fish out of water exactly conveys the status of this naïve, wide-eyed, good guy protagonist.
The plot that had begun so cheerfully, with the delightful Hoffman and apprentice, descends into violence, crime and a web of entanglements.
One wonders whether sound, perhaps music, might provide the solution. It does, and with a flourish that hints at reconciliations and leaves us not dissatisfied.
