Alex Cann Film Column - 18-06-26 - Tuner - An Underrated Crime Caper

Taking a look at the box office top ten, Scary Movie is shredding the competition ahead of this weekend's release of Toy Story 5. Whilst critics have given it something of a savaging, the franchise's sixth instalment has certainly found its audience, and the Wayans Brothers' formula of mocking recent horror movies continues to rake it in. I was always more of a Scream or Final Destination fan, to be honest, so I think I'll sit this one out and wait for it to appear on one of the streaming services.

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act started life on YouTube before becoming available on Netflix. This seems to be a big area of growth, with Backrooms also starting its journey online. It's a fabulous film, by the way, and has made way, way more than its meagre budget. I can't vouch for the circus film, however.

Masters of the Universe sits at number three and is definitely not made on a slim budget. Mattel have gone all out to pay tribute to the legacy of He-Man, and if you grew up loving the cartoons in the 1980s, this is a fitting nod to the past. It's fair to say Amazon will not have been cock-a-hoop with its takings. For context, Backrooms will soon cross the £10 million mark in the UK, whilst Masters of the Universe opened at just over a quarter of that. The gap between the films' budgets is vastly wider. Perhaps bigger is not always better.

Moving on to my film of the week, and one of my favourites of the year so far, Tuner is a five-star humdinger starring the brilliant Leo Woodall as a gifted young piano tuner whose heightened sense of hearing comes in rather handy when it comes to opening safes. Just keep him away from air horns and smoke alarms. It's a crime caper with sparkles of romance that has characters you care about, a cracking jazzy soundtrack, and excellent chemistry between Woodall and Havana Rose Liu as student Ruthie. Dustin Hoffman may be confined to a hospital bed for a fair chunk of the film, but he's reliably ace.

I loved the montage of van chats about food in the opening sequence, the humour, the cinematography, and the story. This is a movie that deserves a much wider audience. I was a little baffled that it didn't open in many cinemas in week one, which restricted its box office performance massively, and as you read this, it's about to vanish from Cineworld. It's worth a trip to the Trafford Centre or into Manchester to catch it.

Next week, we go to infinity and beyond with the new Buzz and Woody adventure, as a new study reveals that there is a spike in babies being named after Toy Story characters in the period following each of the films' releases. I'll also give you my take on Disclosure, the latest Spielberg alien adventure starring rising superstar Emily Blunt. The truth is out there..