Seriously, what, exactly, is filmmaker David Ayer trying to prove and or what exactly is his obsession with Latinx culture? After “Bright” and “Suicide Squad,” two spectacularly unwatchable dips into the pool of tentpole filmmaking, the writer-director has apparently decided to go back to basics—and for Ayer, “back to basics” means loathsome, revolting Latinxploitation. Throughout his career, whether in gang tales like “Harsh Times,” copraganda films like “Street Kings” or “End Of Watch,” where casual racism is second nature to everyone, and even the superhero story “Suicide Squad,” the Champaign, Illinois native has shown a borderline prurient fascination with the Latinx underworld. Who appointed him the go-to guy for these often stereotype-laced stories (other than marrying, and then divorcing a Latinx woman), and how many actual Latinx filmmakers are being passed over for opportunities and attention in the meantime?
Ayer’s latest is “The Tax Collector,” a title that unfurls in Ornate Tattoo Font; he then fills the screen (I’m not making this up) with the words “Love — Honor —Loyalty — Family,” which then fades to a photo of our protagonist with his… family. I’ll give “The Tax Collector” this much: it lost me faster than any movie in recent memory.
The hero is David (Bobby Soto), and we get a taste of his idyllic family life: a loving wife, happy kids, a beautiful home, a big family breakfast that begins with earnest prayer. But ah, it’s not that simple. That big house is paid for by David’s work as a collector for his crime boss uncle (George Lopez, playing convincingly against type). “Every gang in L.A. has to pay their taxes,” David explains. “We get 30% of everything they make.”
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The first act consists mostly of David running those collection errands and flexing power, with the help of his right-hand man, a nattily-dressed enforcer known as “Creeper” (Shia LaBeouf—more on him later). But then his uncle/boss’s old rival (Jose Conejo Martin) shows up, trying to flex back; David warns him, “With all due respect, this is a bad play,” so the rival goes on a killing and kidnapping spree to take over their turf (and to make David join forces, maybe? His plan is a little foggy). 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.” Hell, by the mid-point, I would’ve switched this off for “Mobsters.”
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Speaking of appropriation—yes, you read that right, “The Tax Collector” does indeed feature Shia LaBeouf as a sociopathic enforcer, taking on a Latinx accent and dialect, glaring at guys and growling, “’Sup, homes?” It’s unclear if LaBeouf is literally doing brownface, or if he and Ayer conceived “Creeper” as a white guy who’s picked up the affectations, a la Gary Oldman in “True Romance.” But even if the latter is the case: it’s 2020, read the fucking room, Ayer. Watching one of the whitest actors alive “vato” it up is like listening to old “Amos ‘n Andy” broadcasts— it’s minstrelsy, plain and simple.
Even without that baffling distraction, the picture is hobbled by Ayer’s ongoing obsession with dramatizing the culture’s seedy underbelly; whether Latinx characters are the antiheroes or villains of his films, he never fails in presenting them in the least flattering light. There’s no depth or inner life to these characters — they all just spout gang movie clichés, in between the endless shoot-outs, sneering, and the macho posturing bullshit that Ayer consistently excels at. The only remotely nuanced relationship in the movie turns out to be entirely set-up for an especially noxious “fridging.” His dialogue is all pretentiousness masquerading as profundity, and profanity masquerading as authenticity (“Arright motherfucker, you fuckin’ made your fuckin point, homie!”). And the direction is no better; scenes are slammed into each other like bumper cars, and his action is blunt brutality, a rotten orgy of stylized, video game violence.
Throughout Ayer’s entire career, whether sympathizing and glamorizing the life of cops, law enforcement, soldiers, special forces units, or gang enforcers like in the “Tax Collector,” brute force power reigns, toxic male ego dominates, women are appendages at best, and about the only statement or considered thought made is to speak loudly and carry a bigger stick than the other guys—violence is always used to settle matters of violence with little to no moral reckoning. “The Tax Collector” is the same, and just as empty-headed.
Why would you want to subject yourself to a film this unrelentingly vile and ugly? It’s not that every movie has to bathe in sunshine and syrup, obviously—many of the finest examples of the art dwell in the darkness. But they at least have something to say about that darkness, some kind of insight into the human condition that produces something resembling a catharsis, a light at the end of that tunnel. All this movie has to say is that David Ayer enjoys creating misery, and sharing it. What a repugnant, hateful piece of work this is. [D-]
