David Ayer is a fascinating filmmaker. He wrote The Fast and the Furious and penned Training Day, the film that would earn Denzel Washington his first Best Actor Oscar. Ayer also stepped behind the camera and gave the world an instant classic in End of Watch as well as Fury, Suicide Squad, and last year’s Netflix picture with Will Smith, Bright.
Now he’s back as writer-director for a story about the gang life in Los Angeles, something he keenly understands—what with the stellar Training Day and End of Watch. The Tax Collector stars Bobby Soto and Shia LaBeouf as the titular character and his bodyguard/driver, Creeper. The pair make a formidable force going across town every day collecting the tax from the dozens of LA gangs that they monitor and keep the peace. If someone is short on any given week, well then Creeper earns his nickname and it never happens again.
Problems arise when Conejo (Jose Conejo Martin) gets out of prison and decides that not only is he not interested in paying any more taxes, he wants to control Soto’s David and his boss’ business. That’s not going to work out very well, for anyone. David’s married to Alexis (Cinthya Carmona), who is a part of this endeavor as well, helping by raising their young children and keeping the payments organized in their home before the cash heads out to those with the higher pay grade. When Conejo comes after David’s wife and kids, the titular character will come around seeking much more than taxes.
Ayer’s been hit and miss over time. As brilliant as End of Watch was, Bright was a misfire. This time out, he’s working close to home—the gritty streets of Los Angeles, near to where he grew up. He and Soto were raised in the same neighborhood, just decades apart and that unspoken connection they have permeates the picture. One can tell that Soto had some influence on Ayer’s script as it works for the large part in painting a picture of the gang and Latinx culture of Los Angeles. After all, he’s from those very streets, and since his early days as a screenwriter, he has always brought that culture into his films, by any means possible, even in Fury. That authenticity, at times, feels a bit hard to believe, but there are elements of what is portrayed in The Tax Collector that really do exist in the Chicano culture. There is also the fact that some aspects he has heightened for dramatic purposes—such as Conejo and his world. But the kinship and tightness of family and other aspects of the culture are simply Ayer putting a mirror to that world and shining its richness to the world.
On one hand, it is possible to see a story with a Latino lead like this simply being another gang-member story gone wrong. There is a uniqueness to Ayer’s latest that for me, takes it to another level. This is an entertaining movie. The action sequences are triumphantly choreographed for maximum impact. The slow-motion sequence, in particular, of one attack, was a visual cornucopia for the eyes. The director knows how to frame a story, and more importantly, he keenly is aware of how to portray POC in his films with strokes of affinity, inspiration, and adulation. Perhaps he should branch out into other arenas, some say.
The problem with that is they say write what you know, and he certainly did that in Training Day and End of Watch. To what extent he did in The Tax Collector is slightly different. This is a hyper-realized Los Angeles, where crime is central to everything. One cannot see what is portrayed in his latest and scream that it does not tell its tale proficiently. Imagine John Wick where the only players in this story are involved in the action, they’re either protagonists or antagonists, there is no blurring the lines. In fact, there is hardly a police officer in the entire movie. Just like John Wick. This is a world where criminals live and die and are mourned and loved by their families.
The script itself has a few issues in terms of character motivations that troubled, but for the most part, the narrative chugged forward simply fine. There’s something about the targeting of the family that brought the emotion home and Ayer did it with a few key scenes in particular. The Quinceanera and the morning “routine” as David got ready to go to work scenes. Yet, there wasn’t enough time devoted to developing exactly why this antagonist was so focused on taking David and his team down.
The other issue that some seem to have with The Tax Collector, I would like to take head-on. LaBeouf does an outstanding job in the latest film with Ayer (after Fury) in capturing the essence of a white man who grew up around Latinx culture. He doesn’t talk with an accent, but his cadence is firmly congruent with those around him. The way he carries himself mirrors those around him as well. There’s a point in the script where David talks about “back in the day” with Creeper and one immediately gets the sense that these two either grew up together or shared a geographical upbringing. LaBeouf is not trying to be Latino. He is simply playing the part of someone who grew up surrounded by its astoundingly beautiful culture.
Grade: B