Written and directed by Eric Red
Starring Roy Scheider, Adam Baldwin and Harley Cross
USA, 1989
COHEN AND TATE is more of a crime thriller than a horror movie, but there's enough horrifying stuff going on that I think it qualifies. Especially if you look at it from the point of view of the nine-year-old kid who spends most of the movie being held captive by the two titular professional killers.
Roy Scheider plays Cohen, an aging hitman who's been paired with a younger, more impulsive partner named Tate (Adam Baldwin, no relation to those other Baldwins). Their assignment is to kidnap a little boy (Harley Cross) who witnessed a mob killing and deliver him to their employers. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Tate is a violent psychopath who seems to enjoy making things as unpleasant as possible, while Cohen is an old pro who would prefer to get the job done without any unnecessary complications.
Most of the movie takes place in a car as the two killers drive their hostage across Texas. The kid quickly figures out that his captors don't particularly like each other and starts looking for ways to turn them against one another. Pretty smart, kid.
Scheider is great as the weary professional who's seen it all. Baldwin plays a guy who seems perpetually on the verge of doing something as stupid as it is violent.
The movie was written and directed by Eric Red, who also wrote THE HITCHER and NEAR DARK, and you can see the similarities. There's a hard-boiled, mean-spirited quality to his work that makes even the simplest situations feel dangerous.
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