The Tax Collector (2020)
Directed by David Ayer
David Cuevas is a family man who works as a gangland tax collector for high ranking Los Angeles gang members. He makes collections across the city with his partner Creeper making sure people pay up or will see retaliation. An old threat returns to Los Angeles that puts everything David loves in harm’s way.
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But once the film continues past its first day and expands into a more tempered gangster epic akin to The Godfather, it begins to lose some of its luster as it proceeds to move both too fast and too slow.
Gangster movies and TV shows like “The Godfather” and “The Sopranos” made much of playing off the violence of its perpetrators with the seeming normality of their family lives.
Trying to channel his inner Francis Ford Coppola, circa ‘70s-era The Godfather (he can’t because he doesn’t have the talent, self-awareness, or insight), Ayer basically tries to turn David into a Michael Corleone stand-in, conflicted by the choices he’s made and even more conflicted when choices force him to make one compromise after another, eroding whatever soul he has left when we first meet him in The Tax Collector’s early scenes.
It’s basically a “Godfather” set-up—the old man goes down, and the young successor has to decide if they go to war—but this kind of narrative appropriation is never a good idea because it mostly just makes you want to watch “The Godfather.”
From the jump, the movie feels like a back-to-basics project for Ayer following a pair of perhaps ill-advised adventures in big-budget filmmaking, 2016's "twisted" DC villain team-up Suicide Squad and 2017's cops-and-orcs Netflix fantasy franchise-starter Bright .
LaBeouf has never played a character that is known for having a reputation as the devil and while this is typical fare for writer and director David Ayer, it’s the first time the director has introduced an element of black magic to his repertoire; unless Suicide Squad counts.
The new movie by writer-director David Ayer, The Tax Collector embodies many of the End of Watch and Suicide Squad helmsman's worst tendencies.
Promising offerings like Fury and End of Watch have displayed Ayer’s ability to infuse humanity into machismo conventions, yet the director’s recent run of lackluster blockbusters ( Suicide Squad and Bright) have left a sour aftertaste for his fans.
Imagino que después de la repetida interferencia del estudio en su primer intento de éxito de taquilla, Suicide Squad de 2016, y la indiferencia general ante su segundo intento, Bright de 2017, Ayer tuvo un momento en el que decidió que sólo iba a hacer el tipo de películas oscuras y asquerosas que prefiere, a pequeña escala y dejar que las fichas caigan donde sea.
The Tax Collector, out Friday, was written and directed by David Ayer, he of 2016’s Suicide Squad (do not #ReleaseTheAyerCut ) and Netflix’s baffling 2017 Will Smith–as-a-unicorn-cop situation Bright.
Christian Bale’s incredible—and incredibly different—transformations for The Machinist and Vice are etched into Method acting lore.
Structurally, The Tax Collector is in line with earlier, grittier Ayer works, like the Oscar-winning Training Day , which he wrote the screenplay for, and his found-footage slice-of-life cop movie End of Watch.
David Ayer usually finds his filmmaking sweet spot with films about the thin line between the police state and the criminal underworld in Los Angeles, like in End of Watch or Training Day (not counting the Orc police officers in 2017s insane Bright ).
Training Day , Harsh Times , End of Watch , and even Bright to a certain extent; all capitalized on Ayer’s upbringing and typically revolved around a Caucasian male having a buddy cop dynamic with an African American or Hispanic male.
The Tax Collector is a big disappointment from the writer of Training Day, Street Kings, and End of Watch.
The new movie by writer-director David Ayer, The Tax Collector embodies many of the End of Watch and Suicide Squad helmsman's worst tendencies.
Promising offerings like Fury and End of Watch have displayed Ayer’s ability to infuse humanity into machismo conventions, yet the director’s recent run of lackluster blockbusters ( Suicide Squad and Bright) have left a sour aftertaste for his fans.