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Tax Collector Trailer: Shia LaBeouf Is The Devil In David Ayer’s Crime Drama
The trailer for David Ayer's latest movie The Tax Collector sees Shia LeBeouf and Bobby Soto working in the criminal underground in Los Angeles. Ayer, who most recently helmed Netflix's fantasy cop drama Bright, also wrote the film, which is scheduled to hit theaters and digital on August 7. Ayer's credits also include the Brad Pitt World War II vehicle Fury, which featured LeBeouf in a heartbreaking turn as the Bible-quoting Boyd Swan.
The writer-director established himself by writing gritty crime dramas set in LA. Two of his first three scripts, The Fast and the Furious and Training Day, were set in the city, and he followed those up by writing and directing a series of movies all set in and around South Central LA that follows similar themes. Movies like Harsh Times, Street Kings, and End of Watch all feature a pair of protagonists, either cops or criminals and usually an angry older man and a wide-eyed new kid, encountering some sort of struggle in the notoriously gang-ridden area. Ayer moved away from LA for his 2010s movies, including the comic book movie Suicide Squad, but returned to an alternate version of LA for Bright.
Now, the trailer for Ayer's latest, The Tax Collector, has been released, and it sees Ayer playing in more familiar territory. It stars Soto and LeBeouf as a pair of "Tax Collectors" for a drug lord called Wizard, whose job it is to collect his cut of the deals done by gangs across LA. The trailer shows a gritty, violent film that pits Lebeouf's tough guy and Soto's family man against a range of underworld types, one of whom ends up kidnapping Soto's children. You can watch it below.
The trailer also reveals that the movie will be released on August 7, in theaters, digital and on-demand. The film also stars Cinthya Carmona, Lana Parilla, and George Lopez. Along with the trailer, a new poster was released, which you can see below.
After the mixed reviews for Bright, which nevertheless was a hit for Netflix, and the troubled production on The Suicide Squad, you can't blame Ayer for returning to his roots. And The Tax Collector seems to take him right back there. The blood-soaked, action-packed trailer is vintage Ayer, and fans can expect to see LeBeouf and Soto trading quips along with hits as they make their way through the rough streets of LA.
However, there is also a worry that Ayer is beginning to creep closer to self-parody. LeBeouf's swaggering, sneering Creeper at times comes across like a second-rate ripoff of Denzel Washington's Alonzo in Training Day or Christian Bale's Jim Davis in Harsh Times. Nevertheless, this kind of story is Ayer's bread and butter, and with The Tax Collector, it looks like he's making a solid return to what made him a success in the first place.
