4/29/2023 0 Comments Movie collector reviewsHe awakens beside his wife (Cinthya Carmona), eats breakfast with his family and heads off to “work,” where he’ll extort protection money out of a few low-level local “businessmen.” One can only imagine how he describes his job on “bring your father to school” day, and yet, there’s an unmistakable integrity to how he goes about it. When the movie introduces David, it’s via the respectable-looking family portrait that hangs above the mantel of his upper-middle-class home. any attention let audiences decide where authenticity ends and exploitation begins. (The movie doesn’t give Creeper an explicit backstory but offers enigmatic clues, like the cauliflower ears that suggest he’s taken one too many blows to the head, or the cheekbone scars the actor gave himself on Ayer’s WW2 tank movie “Fury.”) Few directors pay South L.A. Well, there are no cops in “The Tax Collector” - that is, none who get so much as a speaking role - and the only laws that matter are those set by the crime lords and cartels that run the inner-city neighborhoods where the film takes place.Įarly reactions have labeled the film “racist,” and while it’s true that there are virtually no non-criminals in the movie, it’s small-minded to suggest that Ayer is implying that everyone in South Central is some kind of gangster, or that the way any of these characters talk - including the Chicano-accented mumblings of lone white boy LaBeouf, appropriated from those around him - represents all Latinos. Whether those characters are true-blue heroes (“End of Watch”) or rotten to the core (“Harsh Times”), the moral lines were clearly drawn according to who obeyed the law. crime stories, nearly all of which he’s told from the point of view of the police. Behind the camera, Ayer has continued to serve up L.A. Nervous thugs need only stare into Creeper’s eyes to see how they will die - or at least, that seems to be the conceit of several violent cutscenes in this bizarrely edited action movie, which makes Ayer’s studio-reworked “Suicide Squad” seem downright elegant by comparison.įor nearly two decades, this urban bard has been trading on the reputation he established with “Training Day.” Ayer didn’t direct that film (Antoine Fuqua did), but it was his script, and the one that put him on the map as a white dude with South Central street cred. That makes total sense, since Soto possesses none of LaBeouf’s feral, anything-can-happen energy, whereas his co-star brings the coiled-sociopath potential of a werewolf one sliver away from erupting into full-moon berserker mode. Like his father before him, David collects protection money from all the Latino street gangs in South Central, although he tends to delegate the more unpleasant enforcement duties to his cold-blooded lieutenant Creeper. David also has a tattoo - one that reads “familia” in all-caps across his pecs - a none-too-subtle clue that in his personal hierarchy of importance, family takes precedence over his unconventional day job. For now, he comes across as just another pretty face posturing as the tough guy. Picture a youthful Che Guevara with a tidy metrosexual beard, and you’ll understand what Ayer saw in the actor, who could easily go on to become a marquee name. The real star of “The Tax Collector” - the gangland “tax collector” of the film’s title - is relative newcomer Bobby Soto. Otherwise, “Creeper” (a nickname now permanently inked on his abdomen) comes across more menacing in the neatly pressed oxford shirt, necktie and banker’s vest he wears for most of the latest South Los Angeles crime saga from writer-director David Ayer, which is bloody, barely coherent and about as fun as having your face dragged across asphalt from a moving SUV. ![]() Ironically, there’s just one scene - our last view of LaBeouf - in which audiences can spot the ink. You wouldn’t know it from the marketing campaign, but Shia LaBeouf is not the star of “ The Tax Collector.” And for once, the actor isn’t the most interesting thing about a film he’s involved with - this despite the fact that he’s attracted a lot of press over getting his chest tattooed for the part.
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