Cohen & Tate (1989)

Discovery is such a grand thing. As a fan of cinema, there are few emotions more enticing – or exciting – as coming across some rarely-seen gem from a bygone era of filmmaking. Those feelings can sometimes be compounded to a degree when you learn that a favorite writer or director was responsible for producing this work. Such was the case with “Cohen & Tate” (1989), written and directed by Eric Red, who is responsible for two cult classics in the horror genre – “The Hitcher” (1986) and “Near Dark” (1987). Red more or less vanished from film right around 1996 – after writing and directing the little-seen werewolf picture “Bad Moon” – and only recently resurfaced to write and direct a film called “100 Feet” (2008). But that work he did on those two horror films was enough to insure his name would be remembered by genre fans. So, what’s he doing writing a mob movie? Truthfully, although the film could ostensibly be called a “mob movie”, it’s more akin to some of the cat-and-mouse activity found in “The Hitcher”. Personally, despite a knowledge of Red and just about all of the films he’d written or directed I had never even heard so much as a whisper about “Cohen & Tate”. Luckily for fans, Shout! has resurrected the film on Blu-ray, and while it may not be a forgotten classic it certainly is a cut well above average.

An opening scroll informs viewers that young Travis Knight (Harley Cross) is under the Federal Witness Protection Program after witnessing a mob killing in Texas. He and his family attempts to go about their lives as FBI agents watch over them, but when one of the agents turns informant and alerts the mob to where they’re hiding Cohen (Roy Scheider) and Tate (Adam Baldwin) are sent in to kill everyone and kidnap Travis. The only hope he has is the fact that these two hit men – Cohen, an aging enforcer with a steely, cool demeanor; and Tate, a hot head who shoots first and doesn’t bother with questions – hate each other. Travis employs every trick he can to turn them against each other in the hope that they’ll wind up killing themselves and he can escape.

Truthfully, the plot here is very simple. The script, which was loosely adapted from O. Henry’s 1910 short story “The Ransom of Red Chief”, covers less than a day in real time. Cohen & Tate have a 4-5 hour drive back to Houston, where the mob heads want to have a “meeting” with Travis. In that scant amount of time, Red skillfully defines all characters very clearly in order to set up the rivalry between the three. We know that Travis is desperate, and despite knowing his parents have been killed he must become extremely resourceful in order to survive. Tate is an absolute, a hulking brute with a crude sense of humor and an itchy trigger finger. But Cohen, he’s the wild card. There are glimpses behind his demeanor, those few moments when you expect him to turn into a geriatric protector and shrug off this life of crime. He knows how his life in this business will end. But Cohen never takes the easy bait, leaving the audience guessing as to whether or not he actually cares about helping the kid or if he really just wants to kill Tate because he can’t stand him.

Eric Red said he wrote the role of Cohen for Scheider because he had a tendency to play there rogue samurai-type characters that lived by a certain code. A look at Scheider’s filmography confirms that this role fits in with his oeuvre. Roy as Cohen is cold and calculating, using one bullet to kill whereas Tate would have used a set of brass knuckles and a four shotgun blasts. But he never plays the elderly hitman looking to do some good in his life before he gets out. He only sides with Travis’ hatred of Tate because he also hates Tate. Even if he were to kill Tate, he’d still deliver Travis to the mob waiting to snuff him out just as quickly. It all plays out like a deranged buddy-cop flick, except these two only have one shared moment of levity thanks to a bad joke; the rest of their relationship working together is all condescension and bad vibes.

Adam Baldwin made this film almost immediately after “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), and it can be easy to draw parallels to Tate from his character, Animal Mother, in Kubrick’s picture. Both are driven by an unquenchable thirst to kill, with little regard for human life. It’s just a game to them. Red gives Tate one minor moment when he breaks down, revealing a fractured side to his impenetrable brutality. Unlike Cohen, however, there is never one iota of sympathy felt for Tate. He’s a danger to everyone in the film, his reluctant partner included. Many of the standoffs between Cohen, Tate, and Travis have a Sergio Leone quality to them. Eric Red has stated that he was influenced by “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly” (1968), and with so much tension and ocular close-ups those influences are clearly evident.

Harley Cross manages to impress as nine-year-old Travis Knight. It’s tough placing such an onus on a child actor. Viewers tend to forget that child actors, especially in a film like “Cohen & Tate” which takes place almost exclusively at night, have to work long, grueling hours in less-than-favorable conditions. Maintaining composure and keeping up energy after long takes when you’re so young can sometimes cause a performance to suffer. Not here. Cross convincingly plays Travis with a sharp wit, a savvy youngster who understands the stakes and slyly pits these two mismatched partners against each other. He’s not the most believable at crying, but he does know how to think quickly on his feet as the situation dictates.

“Cohen & Tate” was heavily cut for its theatrical release, losing out on a great deal of brutal bloodshed. Most of the cut gore would have been found during the opening massacre at the farm house, and then later on during the climax. In fact, the neutered climax as seen in the film looks abnormally tame when compared to the uncut footage, which thankfully has been included here as an extra feature. I think this is a film that is deserving of a greater audience – even more so since it was barely seen during its limited theatrical release – and Shout! Factory’s Blu-ray is the perfect way to get it out there.