Shia LaBeouf is the lone highlight of this lousy crime thriller from the director of Suicide Squad
Film Reviews Movie Review
The flagrantly generic films of David Ayer have rarely shied away from their Sam Peckinpah pretensions: antiheroes, dirty work, violence in slow-mo. While The Tax Collector, which marks his return to an overfamiliar Los Angeles milieu, does not suggest that Ayer has developed the moral contradictions of a macho auteur, it does imply that he at least has the attendant self-pity. Its depiction of a hardworking gangster (who shares Ayer’s first name) as he deals with enemies on his turf and a boss named Wizard who only cares about the money could be a mea culpa for Ayer’s critically drubbed excursions into micromanaged superhero franchising (Suicide Squad) and modernized Dungeons & Dragons fantasy (Bright). But this is the only ambiguity in a movie in which the villains commit ritual human sacrifice and the themes are literally spelled out in onscreen text: “Love, Honor, Loyalty, Family.”
Ayer appears to take this T-shirt slogan at face value, drawing out the radical insight that criminals can have friends and children over the film’s action-less, perambulatory first hour. The street tax collector of the title, David (Bobby Soto), has a happy family, a nice house, and a sociopathic partner named Creeper (Shia LaBeouf). It’s worth noting that LaBeouf’s performance is about as close as this wobbly film has to a redeeming facet: His continuing Method commitment to lesser macho material (as in Ayer’s Fury and Dito Montiel’s Man Down) is commendable, and the fact that he got a full chest tattoo to play a character who spends almost all of his screen time in a three-piece suit—with the tattoo visible only for a split second, and not clearly—is awesome.
Working for the largely unseen Wizard, David and Creeper eventually come up against Conejo (Jose Conejo Martin), a cartoonishly evil villain who has returned to Los Angeles after a long exile. He’s the one who performs the aforementioned human sacrifice with the help of a sexy female assassin in full body paint during a sequence that is somehow not the most incoherent moment in the movie. Instead, that distinction belongs to a scene toward the end in which David experiences flashbacks of a jiu-jitsu class while bashing a man’s head in with a toilet tank lid. Does The Tax Collector sound intriguingly bizarre? In actuality, it’s a tediously paced procedural about work-life balance in which suspense-free displays of hackneyed gangbanger signage are filled in with a few flashbacks that look like they were a cut from a much more exciting movie.
There are a handful of gruesome images in the final half-hour that may even shock those viewers who haven’t yet given up or fallen asleep. Subtlety is in short supply. We know the bland David is the good gangster because other characters keep saying so and because, like the Michael Peña character in Ayer’s End Of Watch, he has earned the respect of a member of the Bloods (actually played by the same actor), which in Ayer’s book is about as badass as it gets. When the equation is this simple—the honorable God-fearing gangster versus the Satanic cartel bogeyman—the idea that a character’s eventual turn to vengeance represents some kind of moral conflict is laughable.
The truth is, The Tax Collector could have probably used some more cryptic, wasteful artistic principles along the lines of LaBeouf’s performance. Because for the most part, it’s just the boring kind of bad that evinces sloppy and confused direction more than spectacular failure: awkward character introductions, corny dialogue, pacing issues. As with a number of Ayer films, its best claim to authenticity is that it depicts its subjects exactly as they would want to be depicted—that is, above mere mortals in their camaraderie and indifference to violence. If one is going to make something this cliché, though, they should at least try to do a good job.
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You liked The Accountant. You loved The Tax Collector. Coming next Summer: The Comptroller.
I haven’t seen it yet, but there is a Scott Adkins movie called The Debt Collector that looks very promising.
It’s part of the CCU (Collector Cinematic Universe), along with this, The Bone Collector and the original The Collector.
I’m looking forward to Accounts Payable.“THE ACCOUNT WAS PAID…IN BLOOD!”
Accounts Receivable was fire.
Accountz Reeceevin’ Ain’t For No Candy-Ass TempsHerbert Kornfeld, RIP.
Mourn ya till I join ya
I hear they had to ban the Accounts Receivable-45
Which was transferred from the bank. The blood bank.
They spend the entire film clowning on those Accounts Pay-bo bitches.
Comptroller 2: CFO-No You Didn’t
Out of Pocket Costs II: Back in the Pocket
Maybe then I could finally figure out what a comptroller actually does.
Comptrollers audit finance and accounting reports and also they’re world-class assassins.
It’s a demanding and admittedly weird degree program.
You liked Suicide Squad. You loved Bright. Coming next Summer: …..wait you liked those movies? Really? And you wanna see more by the same director? Seriously?
This Summer, it’s pencils down in: THE INVIGILATOR.
“Sometimes you gotta lose comptrol.”
And the XXX version … The Accountant : Double-Entry
Coming Next Summer: The HR RepresentativeHe’s going to review your performance… with bullets.
“its best claim to authenticity is that it depicts its subjects exactly as they would want to be depicted—that is, above mere mortals in their camaraderie and indifference to violence.”This is a pretty good description of End Of Watch, which is jammed with cliche and not very deep but does a great job just hanging around with Pena and Gyllenhaal as loyal buds. Total chickenshit ending though.
Yeah, and he’s not going to make a better movie than that.
Has Ayer ever made a good movie? Why does this guy keep getting work?
How does David Ayer still get work? I mean clearly more people need to see Bright(or at least watch up to the point where they have to turn it off because its terrible)
“In Hollywood, you basically fail upwards” – Kevin Smith.
He did write Training Day and Fury, the latter of which he also directed. Both of those I found entertaining. I even liked Street Kings, tbh.
Yeah, he’s a decent writer. And End Of Watch was pretty great, although that’s the cast doing all the work.
Aside from the cast, one good thing about End of Watch is that it doesn’t stick to a found footage conceit when conventional footage works better.
It isn’t even found footage, though, just interesting POV camera placement (like on the guns, with the lens facing back at the actor instead of forward down the barrel). The fear and intensity on their faces made tense, disorienting situations relatable to the viewer.
After his work on Training Day, Street Kings (which I loved!) and End of Watch, I didn’t expect that trajectory to end up where it did. I (and I’m sure much of Hollywood) was fully prepared to ride the Ayers train to bigger, better projects. You might even think that a more grounded setting like Tax Collector would bring him back to his Street Kings/End of Watch roots, but alas, no.
I’m not his biggest fan, but his movies (excluding Sabotage) are commercially successful. And he’s done enough well-received things (Training Day, End of Watch, Fury) that he’s not considered a total hack.
No idea. I haven’t enjoyed anything Ayer has directed (no, not even ‘Fury’…how do you mess up a movie with Brad Pitt and tanks?!?) but I will say that I always think Shia Labeouf does a good job. I think he gets a lot of crap for playing the annoying guy in Transformers and Indiana Jones, but he is actually a really good actor (see ‘Honey Boy’ and ‘The Peanut Butter Falcon’ for some recent examples.)
To be fair to the director, his Brad Pitt movie was original titled “Furry”. They had to digitally add all the tanks and remove Pitt’s fursuit in post-production after bad test screenings.
Crystal Skull was a dumpster fire but I have hard time assigning any of the blame to Shia. His character was annoying because of the terrible writing but he at least seemed like he wanted to be there unlike Harrison Ford. That scene with him swinging with the monkeys though….man what was Spielberg thinking?
Shia Labeouf is always the best in whatever he’s in. He’s just a good actor. It’s easy sometimes to forget it’s a skill and a craft, and something one can have a natural talent in and he just possesses all three. He hasn’t always taken the best roles to suit him (I think he’s good at emoting and being expressive with his eyes/face, and he has a weird energy and good comedic timing), but when he does he’s great.
His real life persona can be off-putting as well. It’s not surprising he’s become divisive. He’s like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, back in the day, trying to be a leading man, though even less successful. He’s attractive, but he just fits better in smaller, quirkier indy stuff.
I know the glib answer is that he’s a white male, but if that were all it took we’d all be failing upwards. If anything Ayer’s current situation seems like a “the system works!” moment (for now, anyway), making small movies again, this time starring Shia LaBoeuf instead of Jake Gyllenhaal.
Boy, do I have some news for you . . . .
(It involves just how much shittier the average white male is than David Ayers, yet they still get any job at all, friends, women willing to sleep with them and have their children, etc. LOOK WHO OUR PRESIDENT IS.)
fury is genuinely great, too.
Fury is an excellent war film and very well-made, and even the beef turned in a good performance that distracted me from my long-standing loathing.End of Watch is flat fantastic.
His crappy movies make a lot of money inexplicably. Everyone hated Suicide squad (including Ayer himself now) but it made absurd money. Everyone hated Bright, but Netflix claims a lot of people watched it. Studios don’t care if you’re a bad filmmaker, they care that you make money.
As someone who thought his award winning film Training Day was mediocre and overrated, I am just as baffled as you are. I mean FFS…“like the Michael Peña character in Ayer’s End Of Watch, he has earned the respect of a member of the Bloods (actually played by the same actor),”Seriously?!
the photograph is Britt Robertson in ‘Girlboss’ when she’s buying the leather jacket in the vintage clothing store before she walks out with the expression on her face of “I can’t fucking believe that worked!” I’d take that as a compliment Ms. Robertson although you probably prefer the term psychopath
Is it a feature of Shia’s character in the film to have some cauliflower ear going on, or is that just Shia in real life? Something’s going on with that right ear.
I think this may officially solidify Ayer as the American version of Guy Ritchie. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen after Fury, but here we are.
big weekend between this and american pickle. both feel like they existed only to be rentals in the first place.
“the fact that he got a full chest tattoo to play a character who spends
almost all of his screen time in a three-piece suit—with the tattoo
visible only for a split second, and not clearly—is awesome.”No. I’m guessing he wanted one and had the studio pay for it, probably suggested it to the director, and now tells people that he got it for the movie because he commits to his characters.Look, Robert DeNiro is a guy who commits to a role and had no problem getting his teeth ground down for his role in Cape Fear (and then repaired at his own expense after the film) and even his tattoos weren’t real. It’s not difficult to make fake tattoos – they put them in cereal boxes.Fun fact, Scorsese wasn’t supposed to direct Cape Fear – it was supposed to be Spielberg and he wanted Bill Murray in the DeNiro role. Later, when Scorsese took it over, he wanted Harrison Ford in the Nick Nolte role but Harrison Ford said he would only do it if he got to play Max Cady.
LaBeouf has one of his front teeth removed and gave himself a permanent facial scar (which is visible in the image up top) for a previous role. I think he 100% lives through these roles as a form of personal therapy and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
“The crappier the role, the shittier the scar… that’s the path i’m on, i guess.” [draws deeply from a clove cigarette]
I don’t know that its a healthy form of therapy — I’m pretty sure its not. I am, however, glad to see LaBeouf working and productive, for as long as it lasts.
It is okay to still find him annoying in Indy 4?
As long as you still love him in Holes its all good. I always thought it was a mistake to give Indiana Jones a son. A man who treated the women in his life as badly as Indy did (something he apparently picked up from his father) deserved a daughter as karmic penalty. The filmmakers should have cast someone like Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell and put her in that leather motorcycle jacket. It would have rocked, even with a nuke proof refrigerator. And Jason Scott Lee should have played a grown up Short Round.
I get what you’re saying here, story wise, but women don’t exist to teach men life lessons. We aren’t karma. We are half of all humans that exist or have ever existed on the face of the earth.
That’s a shitty/lazy trope that needs to die.
Thanks, your post is a life lesson itself. It didn’t occur to me that my framing still makes the female protagonist someone whom exists for Indy to grow. No one likes getting called out on their ignorance, at least I don’t, but I appreciate the education on something I should already know.If there is a point to continuing the Indiana Jones franchise at all, I think there are plenty of good reasons to make his successors a daughter and his former young sidekick Short Round that don’t make Indy’s growth the focus. There’s no point, imo, in trying to replicate Indy, a character totally associated with one actor. There’s also no point in replicating many of tropes that go with the character because audiences, particularly the international audiences integral to blockbuster success, no longer have a tolerance for the exoticism, western chauvinism and other characteristics inherent in this type of adventure. It has to evolve to survive. I do believe that a daughter would be a greater source of conflict for Indy because typically his relationships with women have been very conflicted. Moreover, over the course of franchise history, women have gone from partners who are adventurers in their own right to sideline characters there to help Indy settle down. It seems overdue to make a female heroine central to the franchise and it would be another strong signal of change. Particular of Crystal Skull, the movie needed a stronger female counterpart to Cate Blanchett’s villain.Finally, a franchise that has tended to use people of color as tokens, joke fodder, exotics or victims, could benefit from a major character of color that is treated more like a hero. Plus I think Jason Scott Lee — especially Dragon/Jungle Book era Lee—would make a great grown Short Round.
Literally everything is wrong with that? Jfc.
Yet I can’t help but like the guy and kind of root for him. I’m 100% sure he’s an asshole though. I just hope he’s not the racist/woman beater kind, though these “tortured artist” types usually are.
Please be better than that, Shia LaBeef!
Have you seen the Mr. Show sketch about the method actor who goes the extra mile even when he’s just an extra? It was shot something like 25 years ago, but it may apply to the present situation.
No. I’m guessing he wanted one and had the studio pay for it, probably suggested it to the director, and now tells people that he got it for the movie because he commits to his characters.That would only be more plausible if we didn’t already know that Shia is not only nuts and not only stupid, but both multiplied by each other.
The measure of true acting is paying for dumb shit out of your own pocket
The tattoo is literally his character’s name. Does that information affect your guess?
Not really. His character’s name is Creeper – which is a word with another meaning pertaining to guys who are creepy which kind of fits with his persona and, I believe, Shia would show off ironically to his friends.
If his character’s name was Gary, it might be a different story.
Lol, you doubled down. Nice imagination.
It is specifically a Mexican-gangster style tattoo with his character’s dumb name Creeper, across his stomach. It’s not just a random one.
Method acting is stupid, no matter who does it. If you can’t actually act, and have to pretend to be a person in order to play that person, maybe acting isn’t the right job for you.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion:But I think David Ayers is a terrible director. And a lot of his movies people deem to be great do not hold up well at all.That and he REALLY, REALLY loves to make Mexicans the bad guys (or be bad people) in his movies.
It’s not a remotely unpopular opinion, and you knew that when you wrote it, which you did to get plaudits for saying it. That’s an annoying contrivance, thanks.
Eh, Pena is basically hispanic Jesus in End of Watch. But I haven’t seen enough of his other films to really debate. The bad guys in that movie made sense as Mexican drug gang members in LA.
I wasn’t aware that hating David Ayer was an unpopular opinion. Are you new here?
modernized Dungeons & Dragons fantasy (Bright). You seem to have misspelled “Blatant Shadowrun knockoff.”
And they took out the one element that makes Shadowrun make sense. That the fantasy races and magic are a recent occurrence.
The only way this movie might be worthwhile is if Ayer doubles down on his use of dumb and obvious needle drops and plays “Taxman” during Shia LeBeouf’s slo-mo entrance.
Not that I am pre-judging, but did the people who said that Shia was brownfacing have any truth behind them? Ayer pointed to his own upbringing which could have either been a good rejoinder or disingenuous (because he doesn’t go around shaking people down, except for the opportunity to make more boring movies)
Shia is playing a white character, at least. They were clear about that much in interviews.
By coincidence, I found myself watching “Harsh Times” recently, at least until I turned it off because it sucked.But in that movie, Christian Bale was, as LeBeouf appears to be, based on the trailer here, playing a character clearly meant to be Latino. But of course, Hollywood wants white boys to star in everything, so here we are.
I get the impression that Labeouf’s saving grace is that he is an actor and as such has a fairly large account with disposable income. If he wasn’t an actor, but a regular guy working, he would have arrested and either place in a mental hospital or prison due to his past and present “behaviors”.
Wow, what happened to David Ayer?This was the guy who wrote and directed both End of Watch as well as Fury, and now he’s had a string of terrible films: Suicide Squad, Bright and now The Tax Collector.Like, did he forget how to make an actual compelling film? Did Suicide Squad just break him mentally and he’s lost his mojo?
I think suicide squad definitely blew open a fuse in his brain. The man turned Joker into a tattoo metal teeth gangster freak. I think Ayer was always bizarre and bad, but Suicide squad just broke the mask of competence he was wearing for a while.
The Joker subplot was the best part of Suicide Squad. It legitimately made him seem like an interesting menace (with a distinctive style) in a world where demigods fly around and fire demons fight witches. It’s everything else that made the film a terrible mess.
It legitimately made him seem like an interesting menace (with a distinctive style)Meh.. “pimping” out the joker was just horrible. It’s one of things I loathed about that film. A guy who favors chaos over money has a rainbow lamborghini and gold jewelry, watches & diamond grill? Just.. No…
It was the better sub plot of that movie but I think Jokers styling was probably the worst idea ever. Or maybe a lizard wearing a hoodie
Does it have the standard serving size of Ayer brand misogyny?
To reiterate, Shia got a real full-chest, Mexican gangster style tattoo for a secondary part in a David Ayer movie about a Mexican gang.
That might be the douchiest sentence to ever exist.
I disagree with the words “Shaya LaBeouf” and “highlight” being in the same headline, on grounds of prior crimes against humanity.
Y’all really out there really thinking you better than “The Kissing Booth 6: The Kissening” or whatever. Lol. This guy only knows how to make boner movies. You know, movies that give guys boners. I honestly don’t see any difference with this movie. They all look the same to me. Guns, gangs, police, bang bang, women as accessories, violence violence, whatever. Enjoy your boots and bangers boner. Maybe there will be a troll or D level superhero or a wizard (ha) superimposed over it, but it’s literally the same movie every time, regardless.
If you like it more or less it’s just because there’s a better actor in it. A Gyllenhaal, a Denzel, etc.
This guy is the hackiest hack who ever hacked and if you’re trying to convince yourselves otherwise I’m just gonna laugh at y’all the way y’all laugh at the delusional women in the rom-com reviews.
Cue Pam from The Office meme: “They’re the same picture.”
If you’re into movies about collections, it sure seems like Scott Adkins’ The Debt Collector is a more enjoyable experience.
I recall an anecdote from the from the film ‘Marathon Man’. Dustin Hoffman was was working himself into a ‘method acting’ mental frenzy for a scene when his co-star sir Lawrence Olivier leaned in and suggested ‘My dear, why not instead try acting.”
okay so we can finally say with our whole chests that David Ayer is physically incapable of making anything decent for the last little while and he should maybe stop punishing us because we exist at the same time as him.
I think I can speak for most people here by asking, is it worth a free torrent download?
Shia apparently also paid some UFC meathead to give him cauliflower ears for this role.
…filled in with a few flashbacks that look like they were a cut from a much more exciting movie.There are few greater joys than reading a well-written review of a bad film. Loved this comment and the review – it did not disappoint (neither did the plot summary on Wikipedia, which saved me the time watching this film).