Tuner: Sadly off-key

Tuner (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for violence, dramatic intensity and considerable profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.20.26

Of all the ways a film can fail, the most disappointing is when script, execution and tone show great promise during the first two acts...

 

...and then everything goes to hell during the third act, leaving viewers unsatisfied, and with an expression of bewildered “what the heck?” 

 

Upon arrival at each client's home, Harry (Dustin Hoffman) does all the talking and
glad-handing, while the genial and mostly silent Niki (Leo Woodall) focuses on
tuning an often unloved piano.

That’s sadly the case with this film, Academy Award-winning documentarian Daniel Roher’s first dramatic feature. The beguiling premise in Roher and Robert Ransey’s script is clever and fascinating; the primary characters are deftly sculpted and credibly portrayed by all cast members; and when blended with the initially relaxed atmosphere — shaded with just a dollop of danger — the result is an entertaining viewing experience.

Until the final half hour, anyway.

 

Niki White (Leo Woodall) and long-time New York City piano tuner Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) are introduced during an amusing montage of their various assignments, mostly for wealthy clients. Harry, once a close friend of Niki’s late father, has become absent-minded, and is losing his hearing. 

 

Niki’s initial position as apprentice has blossomed into something much closer to a family bond; Harry’s wife, Marla (Tovah Feldshuh, marvelous as always) dotes on the young man, as does Harry.

 

At work, Harry and Niki are an amusing Mutt ’n’ Jeff pair, with the former’s easygoing manner and motor-mouthed, often off-topic chatter wholly at odds with the younger man’s cheerful patience, frequently rolled eyes, and focused, measured responses. Harry always dresses “nicely,” although his clothes appear several styles out of date; Niki favors dark jumpsuits. We get the impression that his wardrobe — and lifestyle — are simple and minimal.

 

Harry is a longtime jazz aficionado, and frequently regales Niki with back-in-the-day encounters with cats such as Herbie Hancock, who gave Harry the amusing nickname — “Tuner Fish” — by which he’s often greeted. Niki takes such stories with a dubious grain of salt.

 

Further in that vein, Will Bates’ jazz-inflected original score often is interrupted by snatches of familiar tunes by Dave Brubeck, Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Nina Simone and several others.

 

Hoffman is a hoot in this role, his manner repeatedly shifting between impish, impatient and nostalgic, and back again. He effortlessly steals focus, although Woodall possesses plenty of his own quiet charm (amply displayed in his role as the hunky park ranger, in last year’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy).

Mayday: Easygoing Cold War thrills

Mayday (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for violence, action and fleeting profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.13.26

This film’s lighthearted, mismatched-buddies-in-peril tone notwithstanding, co-directors and writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein deserve credit for inserting a strong message relevant to our times:

 

Don’t let government propaganda and assumptions about “the other” interfere with our individual ability to judge people based on their character and behavior.

 

Evading KGB pursuers was hard enough when Nikolai (Kenneth Branagh, center) had
only his new friend Troy (Ryan Reynolds) to worry about .... but matters get even more
intense when Nikolai's daughter (Maria Bakalova) enters the picture.

The year is 1987, toward the end of the U.S./Soviet Cold War. Despite U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s initial belief that the Soviets were dangerous and immoral, his tone has softened following Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985. Even so, U.S. military forces remain on constant alert for signs of nuclear build-up.

Following a training drill during which U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Troy Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) demonstrates “the right stuff” during the unconventional rescue of a wingman, he’s selected for a special reconnaissance op. The CIA-sponsored mission: to surveille suspected missile silos 1,200 miles inside the Soviet border.

 

To Kelly’s unhappy surprise, he’s relegated to co-pilot status, responsible solely for running the camera. Their long-range, high-altitude SR-71 Blackbird instead will be flown by Air Force pilot Maj. Pete Sanders (Louis Cancelmi, appropriately condescending), an insufferable jerk with the typical Air Force bias against Navy pilots.

 

Sanders pays for that hubris in the worst possible way, when they’re intercepted by a Soviet MiG. The quick-thinking Kelly manages to destroy the MiG — quite improbably, which signals the tone this film will take — and eject. But debris destroys his parachute as snow-covered terra firma appears below, and his final fall results in a bad leg injury. His last conscious image is of an approaching cloaked figure, carrying a nasty-looking rifle...

 

...who, when Kelly regains consciousness, turns out to be benevolent Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), a former KGB officer turned passionate admirer of American culture in general, and his bootlegged VHS copy of the movie “Top Gun” in particular.

The Donn of Tiki: Clever title, fascinating documentary

The Donn of Tiki (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); Unrated, but akin to PG, for occasional crime references

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Ernest Gantt — possibly Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt — was the living embodiment of that classic line from 1962’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:

 

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

 

Donn Beach died in June 1989, and therefore wasn't available for the filmmakers. They
did the next best thing, teaming with Mystery Meat Media to deliver Beach's portion
of a lengthy interview via this droll stop-motion puppet.

Gantt, much better known as Donn Beach, was the public face of the Don the Beachcomber bars and restaurants, which — during their heyday — had numerous locations throughout the United States. Along with Victor Jules Bergeron Jr., the public face of the similar Trader Vic’s chain, they revolutionized the tiki bar scene. That became quite a thing from the late 1930s to the early 1970s ... at which point, interest waned, until reviving and becoming even more popular as the 21st century has progressed.

But Gantt definitely was the first to turn a blend of Cantonese food, Caribbean mixology and South Pacific décor, into a popular destination. He invented both the craft cocktail and the concept of “themed escapism” later mimicked (often not as tastefully) by chains such as Elephant Bar, Rainforest Café, Hard Rock Café and Chuck E. Cheese

 

But unlike Bergeron, a savvy businessman who led a fairly routine life, Gantt was a man of mystery who constantly embellished his past and accomplishments, to the point that it’s now extremely difficult to separate fact from fabrication.

 

Documentarians Alex Lamb and Max Well certainly had a lot of fun trying, and their delightful film works hard to establish ... if not actual truth, then near-truth. They do so with an engaging blend of archival footage; interviews with Gantt’s friends and family members; contemporary historians and mixologists; and even charming, 1930s-style black-and-white and color cartoon sequences (by Venturia Animation).

 

The most ingenious touch, though, is the stop-motion puppet figure of Gantt, animated by Mystery Meat Media, employed as the “face” during a lengthy radio interview the man gave back in 1986 ... a conversation which, it must be acknowledged, frequently muddies the waters of accuracy.

 

Lamb and Well also rely extensively on input from Tim “Swanky” Glazner, author of Searching for Don the Beachcomber, whose exhaustive research comes closest to nailing down the truth. But even he confesses, at times, that certain details of Gantt’s life remain obstruse. 

 

Actually, it’s amusing to hear different versions of the same story, such as how — and precisely when — the Zombie cocktail was concocted.

Coyote Vs. ACME: A smash riot

Coyote Vs. ACME (2025) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated PG, for cartoon violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.6.26

Chuck Jones would be thrilled to bits.

 

When he and writer Michael Maltese co-created the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, for the 1949 Warner Bros. cartoon short “Fast and Furry-ous,” they likely thought this pairing would be a one-off.

 

Paige (Lana Condor) and her Uncle Kevin (Will Forte) are about the experience the
chaos that results from even a seemingly innocuous ACME product ... and they'd also
better be careful with what's inside that box.

As if.

That ingenious tribute to the silent-movie slapstick efforts of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd became — at the risk of citing the infamous oxymoron — an instant classic. 

 

Jones went on to direct 25 more theatrical shorts featuring the doomed efforts of Carnivorous Vulgaris (the Coyote) to catch Accelleratii Incredibus (the Road Runner), up to 1980’s “Soup or Sonic.” While the first dozen or so arguably are funnier and more clever than what followed, as a whole it’s still an awesome body of work.

 

I’m therefore delighted to report that director Dave Green and his team of writers — Samy Burch, James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, inspired by Ian Frazer’s hilariously deadpan 1990 humor piece in The New Yorker — have faithfully adhered to Jones’ wit, style and frenetic comedy pacing with this phantastic feature film.

 

Full disclosure: What follows is an unapologetic and shamelessly biased five-star review by someone who has, from the moment I was old enough to appreciate his work, long worshipped at the altar of All Things Chuck Jones ... and I now have no trouble adding this marvelously chaotic blend of live action and animation to that pantheon of cartoon comedy.

 

The premise here is as golden as it is simple. After the film opens on Wile E.’s most recent attempts to catch his prey — each failing, due (as always) to faulty engineering — the Coyote finally realizes that the blame, all these years, is not his. No, he has been the victim of dangerously defective ACME products.

 

The obvious solution: a product liability lawsuit.

 

But something even more sinister is afoot here. A prologue reveals that longtime ACME scientist Dr. Lorre — an intentional caricature of Peter Lorre, one of numerous movie stars lampooned in early Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts — has become convinced that the work he has been doing, on the clandestine “Project Sisyphus,” is unacceptably dangerous. He manages to box up one mysterious item before being caught and — true to ACME form — forced to step into a small circular black hole. He vanishes, after which the hole is carefully rolled up and placed in storage (!).

The Whisper Man: No reason to eavesdrop

The Whisper Man (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for bloody violence, disturbing images, profanity and suicide

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang 

Director James Ashcroft gets points for maintaining a consistently creepy atmosphere of unsettling dread, but that can’t compensate for a storyline that relies too heavily on coincidence, contrivance and just plain stupid behavior by the primary characters.

 

Tom (Adam Scott) and his young son Jake (Acston Luca Porto) initially are optimistic
about their move to a new community ... but they'll soon have second thoughts,
starting with the quietly malevolent house in which they've chosen to live.

Scripters Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer have taken considerable liberty with their uneven adaptation of British crime author Steve Mosby’s 2019 debut novel (written under the pseudonym Alex North). For starters, the setting has been moved to the fictitious woodsy community of Garretton, New Jersey, still reeling from a series of grisly child abductions and murders committed two decades earlier by a figure known as the “Whisper Man.”

All these years later, children still frighten each other by chanting a macabre poem generated by those tragedies:

 

If your window’s left unlatched,

You’ll hear him tapping at the glass.

 

Disturbingly — as the film begins — a young boy, Neil Spencer, has just gone missing. The search team is led by local police Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan), and the group discovers a body ... but this one is years decomposed.

 

Elsewhere, Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) and his 8-year-old son, Jake (Acston Luca Porto), have just driven to Garretton, hoping for a fresh start following the tragic loss of Tom’s wife, and the boy’s mother. Depending on the camera angle, looking through the front windshield, there either is — or isn’t — somebody sitting in the back seat behind Tom.

 

As we soon learn, this is Jake’s special imaginary friend.

 

“Your mom always wanted us to move back to the town we grew up in,” Tom says. His relationship with Jake is loving, but strained; Tom can see that his son still is damaged goods, and he tries hard to compensate. Jake, in turn, carries his “packet of special things” wherever he goes.

 

So, okay; moving to Garretton is prompted by a valid reason ... but why did Tom pick this particular house in which to live? It’s a massive, ominous three-story affair, large enough for a family of eight, laden with huge, empty rooms that exude a palpable level of dread: completely impractical for just two people.

 

(As it eventually transpires, this house is a poor choice for several unpleasant reasons: merely the first of this dumb script’s numerous contrivances.)

 

So, they settle in. Jake begins school; Tom, a novelist, hopes this environment will help overcome a serious case of writer’s block.

 

A brief cutaway reveals poor Neil (Exavier Montanez) locked in a tiny room, being terrorized by a deranged hooded sicko, whose whispered platitudes are wholly at odds with his eventual intentions.