Every few years, David Ayer reminds us that Michael Bay isn’t the only director blowing stuff up for no reason. Bright, Sabotage and Street Kings are examples of what Bayhem would look like if it were rated R and his latest film, The Tax Collector, is no exception.
The Tax Collector begins in a very expected way for this sort of thing. After breakfast with his wife and kids, David (Bobby Soto) teams up with his partner in crime, Creeper (Shia Labeouf). Their job is to collect payments from dozens of street gangs for a protection racket run by Wizard, who’s seen with his back toward the camera in a prison cell. Before you can wonder just who the heck this guy is, bodies start piling up in Los Angeles, where the head of the Mexican Cartel, Conejo (Jose Conejo Martin), is savagely, furiously and ceaselessly taking over Wizard’s business.
The Tax Collector begins in a very expected way for this sort of thing. After breakfast with his wife and kids, David (Bobby Soto) teams up with his partner in crime, Creeper (Shia Labeouf). Their job is to collect payments from dozens of street gangs for a protection racket run by Wizard, who’s seen with his back toward the camera in a prison cell. Before you can wonder just who the heck this guy is, bodies start piling up in Los Angeles, where the head of the Mexican Cartel, Conejo (Jose Conejo Martin), is savagely, furiously and ceaselessly taking over Wizard’s business.
- 8/11/2020
- by Asher Luberto
- We Got This Covered
In the world of masculine cinema, there may be no more divisive and inconsistent an auteur than David Ayer. Indeed, even writing the words “auteur” and “David Ayer” in the same sentence may make some cinephiles’ brains explode like a cranium punctured by a high-caliber, high-velocity bullet. By the standards of any basic definition, though, this status has been clearly established. Between his dedication to dissecting and exploring the codes of a certain kind of male bonding––usually one forged in and shaped by landscapes of horrific violence where normal societal boundaries are replaced by deeply niche, personal codes of honor––and his reverence of the concept of families, both blood-bound and otherwise, Ayer has created an oeuvre of stories that could never be mistaken as the work of someone else.
When these movies hit, they hit hard and fast and decisively. End of Watch is a movie of uncommon...
When these movies hit, they hit hard and fast and decisively. End of Watch is a movie of uncommon...
- 8/10/2020
- by Brian Roan
- The Film Stage
There are several constants that you find in a David Ayer movie. He loves to explore the world of crime, as well as the thin lines of good and evil that exist within the criminal underworld. The same goes for when he’s focusing on cops. We’ve seen Ayer’s best with End of Watch and Fury (plus his script for Training Day), as well as his worst with Suicide Squad (even if that wasn’t completely his fault). His newest outing, The Tax Collector, has several elements of good Ayer, as well as bad Ayer. The end result is a frustrating experience that hints at his talents but manages to let you down. The film is a mix of crime drama and action outing, more or less what you’d come to expect from this particular storyteller. David Cuevas (Bobby Soto) is a family man, first and foremost,...
- 8/6/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Shia Labeouf can give complex, transportive performances, with rough and edgy bursts of messy antics slathered on top of soul. Sadly, “The Tax Collector” is not “American Honey.” In writer-director David Ayer’s bland L.A. crime saga about a pair of drug lord minions caught in the crosshairs of a larger war, Labeouf stares and struts his way through a cartoonish and culturally insensitive performance as a troublemaking thug named Creeper that most certainly did not require him to get his character’s name tattooed across his chest.
If the two-bit Latino burlesque was the only problem with “The Tax Collector,” it would have to work overtime to make up for it. Yet even when “The Tax Collector” finds a steadier purpose as a taut revenge thriller, it’s mostly just a slog of vulgar threats and violent outbursts, trading substance for anger until the credits bring some measure of peace.
If the two-bit Latino burlesque was the only problem with “The Tax Collector,” it would have to work overtime to make up for it. Yet even when “The Tax Collector” finds a steadier purpose as a taut revenge thriller, it’s mostly just a slog of vulgar threats and violent outbursts, trading substance for anger until the credits bring some measure of peace.
- 8/3/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
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