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. A crime thriller that brings the filmmaker back to his familiar stomping ground of South Central L.A., this grisly tale of a "tax collector" and his partner to a shadowy crime lord touches on most of Ayer's favorite themes (family, honor, religion, brotherhood), yet fails to deepen them in significant ways. It's not for a lack of passion for the subject matter, either; there's a sense of respect for both the L.A. gang codes and Latinx cultural traditions on display, but they're let down by the the film's plot and characters. Combined with Ayer's continued storytelling missteps, The Tax Collector amounts to a lot of blood and brutality without the soulfulness to match.

Bobby Soto and Shia LaBeouf star in the film as David and Creeper, a pair of "tax collectors" who work for an incarcerated crime lord known as Wizard (Jimmy Smits), collecting a cut of the profits from various drug gangs around the South Central region of Los Angeles. The pair inspire terror in those they collect from - particularly Creeper, who's known for dolling out sadistic punishments to anyone who fails to pay their "taxes" - but also play fair, earning them the respect of rival organizations. But when Conejo (Jose Conejo Martin), Wizard's vicious old rival, returns to L.A. from Mexico and demands David work for him now, the relative peace is shattered, forcing David to protect his loved ones from getting caught in the crossfire.

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Shia LaBeouf and Bobby Soto in The Tax Collector

Filmed back in the summer of 2018, The Tax Collector is only now releasing On Demand, and it's not hard to understand why. Ayer's directorial efforts have always been an acquired taste for the way they rub audiences' noses in the violence and savagery of the criminal underworlds they depict, but The Tax Collector does so while telling a story that is thoroughly generic. Plot beats that are meant to be shocking can be spotted a mile away, and even the subtler payoffs in the third act do little to service David's arc or bring out more layers to him as a character. The movie's at its best when it follows David and Creeper on their daily routine in the early going, contrasting their differing outlooks (David is deeply spiritual and all about family; Creeper is unmarried and doesn't believe in God, but is all about caring for his body and mind) while also illustrating why they work so well together. Once the primary conflict kicks into gear, though, their bromance is quickly thrown to the curb.

Speaking of LaBeouf: although his casting in The Tax Collector has raised concerns about the actor delivering a performance in brown-face, Ayer insists Creeper isn't meant to be a Latinx caricature, describing him as "a whiteboy who grew up in the hood." Setting that aside, the character is only really memorable because he looks a bit like Ayer in real-life. There's far less emotional depth and charisma to LaBeouf's performance than his recent work elsewhere, and his dietary quirks aside, there's equally little to set Creeper apart from the many idiosyncratic killers-for-hire who've come before him. There's something to be admired in the fact he's the only major white actor here, or at least there might've been, had the movie given Soto and the rest of the cast (including, Cinthya Carmona as his wife Alexis and George Lopez as his uncle Louis) better material to draw from. Yet, despite the sense of authenticity the predominantly non-white cast (and even Ayer, drawing from his own experiences growing up in L.A.) bring to the table, they're dragged down by having to play characters who're never fleshed out beyond archetypes at best, stereotypes at worst.

Conejo and Cheyenne Rae Hernandez in The Tax Collector

Even with some promising elements in the first half, Ayer's self-defeating tendencies begin to sink The Tax Collector as it carries on. The third act specifically gets bogged down in scenes of bloodshed and barbarity that are (as is typical of his films) gruesome, yet weirdly fetishistic in the way Ayer and his DP Salvatore Totino (Bird Box) capture them in slow-motion and linger on shots on blood spraying everywhere as people are murdered in increasingly gory ways. This is also where the misogyny Ayer is too often accused of indulging in rears its head, as most of the better-developed women featured earlier in the movie are either sidelined or included for seemingly little purpose other than to be killed or endangered here. The sole exception is Gata (Cheyenne Rae Hernandez), Conejo's silent associate, who spends most of the film's second half scantily clad while gladly helping him butcher his enemies. If the character was intended to be empowering in her wickedness, she misses the mark.

Ayer's macho, brooding, and frequently exploitative movies have never been for everyone, but even his hardcore fans may find The Tax Collector to be a middling effort at most. Without the strong set pieces or acting of his best work, nor even the zany characters and fantasy elements found in his recent genre movies, there's not a lot to recommend about the film to anyone else, save for the representation it offers to the still-marginalized Latinx community. Even then, its flaws are too great and overwhelm whatever positive ambitions it had in mind. Ayer is right when he asks "Where is the f-ing Hollywood Chicano superstar?" while promoting the movie; it's just too bad he couldn't give a better answer to that question.

NEXT: The Tax Collector Trailer

The Tax Collector is now playing in select theaters and On Demand and Digital. It is 95 minutes long and is not rated.

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