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Now and then, some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, who are typically known for more heroic roles, shock us all with a dark, sinister performance, playing characters that allow them to infuse a villain with humility. Some that immediately come to mind are Denzel Washington in Training Day, Robert Redford in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther, and Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights. Yet, one actor whose darkest performance often gets overlooked is Roy Scheider’s aging assassin in 1989’s Cohen & Tate.
A rare crime thriller released at the end of the feel-good ‘80s, Cohen & Tate marked the directorial debut of Eric Red, best known as the screenwriter for the cult classics The Hitcher and Near Dark. Scheider’s casting in an otherwise small indie film came at an interesting time in his career. A superstar of ‘70s cinema, the actor had made his mark as a reliable everyman action hero in The French Connection and Jaws. Additionally, he earned critical acclaim and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing Bob Fosse in 1979’s All That Jazz. By the mid-’80s, however, the aging Scheider was being passed up for new cinematic stars like Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis. By accepting the role of Mr. Cohen, Scheider showed audiences he could play a cold-blooded villain they care about.
What Is ‘Cohen & Tate’ About?
Cohen & Tate’s opening sequence is reminiscent of Walter Hill’s 48 HRS. as it sets up the contrasting styles of its antagonistic leads with a shockingly violent sequence involving child endangerment. Scheider’s Mr. Cohen is an old-school professional killer partnered with a younger, short-tempered assassin named Mr. Tate (Adam Baldwin). The pair of hitmen are hired by an unseen Texas mobster to kidnap nine-year-old Travis (Harley Cross), a mob assassination witness under the witness protection program, along with his parents. While Cohen simply shoots Travis’ father and the assigned agents with a pistol, Tate savagely blasts them away with a shotgun like the homicidal maniac he is.
Once the parents and agents are eliminated, Cohen and Tate are tasked to take Travis from Oklahoma to Houston to confront their mob employer. To their surprise, however, they learn over the radio that Travis’ father survived the gunshot wound at the hands of Cohen. Travis senses the growing tension between the two hitmen and gradually uses mind games to get them to turn against each other.
‘Cohen & Tate’ Is a Relentless Nightmare on a Highway
Much like the nightmarish thrill ride of Red’s The Hitcher, Cohen & Tatelargely plays from the young boy’s perspective as a dark, grounded fairy tale. Set primarily in the killers’ car on a pitch-black highway at night, the film does not feature a standard hero on a white horse coming to save the day. At every turn when Travis believes he finds hope through a working highway patrolman or an innocent gas station attendant, each of them falls prey when Cohen and Tate put their differences aside.
One significant moment midway through the film is when the killers get stopped at a police roadblock. Instead of surrendering themselves, the killers hold Travis at gunpoint and force the police to handcuff themselves. Then, to keep the police off their tail, Tate blows up the patrol cars on the roadblock. This sequence establishes the fact that both assassins are hellbent on completing their mission and share no affection for Travis. With no cavalry coming to save him, Travis is forced to keep one of his captors close to survive the nightmare.
The story never fully details why the Texas mobster hired Cohen and Tate for this specific assignment. Yet, there are underlying hints that the job is really less about Travis and more about the killers turning against each other. For all his Terminator-like presence, Tate is too reckless and mentally troubled to be employed. He is capable of sabotaging the job because of his desire to kill Travis himself when push comes to shove. But with all the terrible deeds caused by Scheider’s Cohen, however, he is physically vulnerable and abides by a samurai-like moral code. He lives like a once great warrior about to be put to pasture. Regardless of his villainous ways, Cohen remains a strict professional who’d rather keep Travis alive to make it to Houston than kill him for his troubles.
Roy Scheider Is a Sympathetic Bad Guy in ‘Cohen & Tate’
What makes Scheider so compelling as Cohen is his sense of impending doom. With previous hero roles as Chief Brody in Jaws and Officer Murphy in Blue Thunder, Scheider’s characters are largely defiant in the face of a larger threat. With Cohen, however, the character senses his own potential demise between riding with the short-tempered Tate and the police hunting them down. In the one singular moment where his soft side is shown, Cohen stops at a mailbox to drop off an envelope with money to a loved one. This establishes the fact that, as a career criminal in the killing business, Cohen still has some personal attachment that makes his inevitable fate even that much more tragic.
Cohen’s defiance to keep Travis alive to finish the job extends to the showdown with Tate. The two hitmen face off in a fatal shootout with Cohen handcuffed to Travis, both to protect his investment and his life. Ideally, someone in Travis’ position would find a way out and allow the hitmen to kill each other. Such conflict is evident when Cohen loses his hearing aid during the shootout. Sensing the fear and vulnerability in the otherwise cold-hearted Cohen, Travis returns the hearing aid, much to his relief. But even after he succeeds in disposing of Tate, a badly wounded Cohen still spends his dying moments riding to Houston with Travis at gunpoint until the cops finally close in. The frequent change in Cohen’s demeanor allows Cohen & Tate to never fall into the trap of characters becoming too soft in their relationships.
In the end, Cohen & Tate is a thrilling tale about two completely different kinds of bad people, with Scheider delivering a haunting performance as a villain with humanity opposite of his square-jawed hero roles. Scheider’s performance in Cohen & Tate has unfortunately been overlooked, though the crime thriller should be remembered as one of his best.
Cohen & Tate follows the tense journey of two hitmen tasked with delivering a young boy to their shadowy employers. The dynamic between the older, seasoned Cohen and the volatile, aggressive Tate is strained further by the boy’s cunning efforts to pit them against each other, testing their loyalty and resolve.
- Release Date
- January 27, 1989
- Director
- Eric Red
- Cast
- Roy Scheider , Adam Baldwin , Harley Cross , Cooper Huckabee , Suzanne Savoy , Marco Perella , Tom Campitelli , Andy Gill , James Jeter , Ron Jackson , Ted Baader , Kenneth McCabe
- Runtime
- 86 Minutes
- Writers
- Eric Red
- Character(s)
- Cohen , Tate , Travis Knight , Jeff Knight , Martha Knight , FBI George , FBI Fred , FBI Roy , Trooper #1 , Trooper #3 , Trooper #4 , Gas Station Attendant
Cohen & Tate is available to rent on YouTube in the U.S.
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