Shia Labeouf can give complex, transportive performances, with rough and edgy bursts of messy antics slathered on top of soul.
Sadly, “The Tax Collector” is not “American Honey.” In writer-director David Ayer’s bland L.A.
crime saga about a pair of drug lord minions caught in the crosshairs of a larger war, Labeouf stares and struts his way through a cartoonish and culturally insensitive performance as a troublemaking thug named Creeper that most certainly did not require him to get his character’s name tattooed across his chest.If the two-bit Latino burlesque was the only problem with “The Tax Collector,” it would have to work overtime to make up for it.
Yet even when “The Tax Collector” finds a steadier purpose as a taut revenge thriller, it’s mostly just a slog of vulgar threats and violent outbursts, trading substance for anger until the credits bring some measure of peace.
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