User Reviews

"Cohen and Tate" is a reasonably entertaining road movie of the dramatic kind: mismatched mafia hit men Cohen (Roy Scheider) and Tate (Adam Baldwin) carry out an assignment to kidnap young Travis (Harley Cross of "The Believers"), gunning down his parents and the FBI agents watching over them. Travis had witnessed a mob rubout and now the employers of Cohen and Tate want to know everything that the kid knows before taking *him* out. The problem is, nothing goes smooth because of the two opposing personalities in play here. Cohen is the Older and Wiser type, very weary at having to put up with a hothead punk such as Tate, the kind of guy who enjoys violence way too much. Travis soon notices this and realizes that his best chances for survival lie in attempting to pit them against one another.

Eric Red, screenwriter of "The Hitcher" and "Near Dark", made his feature length directing debut with this moderately interesting, very well paced little film, his version of the O. Henry story "The Ransom at Red Chief". Most of the film takes place inside a car, so he proves up to the challenge of shooting in a claustrophobic environment and keeping the audience involved in what is happening. As Cohen and Tate spend more and more time with each other, things just get more and more grim and uneasy. Tate has shown his capacity for savagery, and his quick temper, and the increasingly more frustrated Cohen finds it harder and harder to maintain his self control. What is often truly disturbing is seeing guns repeatedly leveled at young Cross' head. You really fear for this kids' life.

Right from the start, Red is ratcheting up the suspense, diving head first into the action. In an odd touch, he gets his back story out of the way *very* quickly with a brief expository text. Then things soon get ugly. Red does an excellent job of keeping his tone grim throughout. Much of the effectiveness, however, can be attributed to the acting. Baldwin is a live wire in his part, and young Cross delivers a sympathetic, mature performance, holding his own opposite his more experienced co-stars. Scheider is of course superb; he's as commanding as ever as the professional killer saddled with a loose cannon partner. Cooper Huckabee ("The Funhouse") is good in his brief screen time as Travis' father. Talents behind the camera include composer Bill Conti and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper.

"Cohen and Tate" is good stuff and is worth seeking out or rediscovering for the cult movie aficionado.

Seven out of 10.

Cohen & Tate is directed by Eric Red who also adapts the screenplay from the short story "The Ransom of Red Chief" written by O. Henry. It stars Roy Scheider, Adam Baldwin, Harley cross, Suzanne Savoy and Marco Perella. Music is by Bill Conti and cinematography by Victor J. Kemper.

Two professional hit men known as Cohen (Scheider) and Tate (Baldwin) kidnap 9 year old Travis Knight (Cross) from the Witness Protection Program and set off to deliver him to mob bosses in Houston. But with the wise old Cohen the polar opposite of the younger and psychotic Tate, young Travis senses an opportunity to turn the pair of them against each other to maybe manufacture his escape?

After a quite brutal opening, Cohen and Tate settles into a road movie where 90% of the action is based in a car populated by only three characters. The premise is simple, an increasingly psychotic Tate (Baldwin overacting to within an inch of his life) wants to kill the annoying kid in the back seat. Cohen (a graceful and film saving Scheider) is not having that, he may be a hit-man but he still has codes and orders to adhere to. Travis the kid (Cross is whiny and poor) chips away at each man's psyche, causing a fractured atmosphere that ensures we are never quite sure how it will end up. In fact the finale is actually a doozy.

That Cohen & Tate is no forgotten masterpiece is down to uneven direction, poor acting away from Scheider and an all round preposterous feeling to it all. Credibility and logic is stretched to breaking point, often, while the dialogue doesn't sit right with the characters on show. Frustrating really because in spite of its problems it's a very watchable picture that has a strong premise at its core, and Scheider is definitely a reason to take a punt on a viewing. Even if he, and us, deserve a better movie as a whole. 7/10

User rating of 4.8? yeah right, so much for credibility!

Diabolically stupid reviews for this film go some way to explaining how this rating has eventuated but not all. Gratifying to see a few people with both awareness and understanding, albeit way in the minority.

For the record, this is one brilliant film, barely screened worldwide and buried long ago in video Boot Hill! A dialog-driven film which of course 'lost' the action-freaks probably during the opening reel. An entire movie shot more or less within the confines of an automobile and the interest never wanes (if you're SEEING, not just surface watching). Why is it brilliant? Because it offers the one thing ALL absorbing films do - INTERESTING CHARACTERISATIONS! Even Harley Cross as Travis Knight, the feisty lad under threat of death, contributes immeasurably to the film.

Arguably Baldwin and Scheider's greatest performances as the two hit-men thrown together on a "job" and yet who play by such different rules. Baldwin, the moronic Tate with no scruples, intellect or even taste. Scheider as Cohen the ageing assassin, weary of his lot but despite wanting to "get the job done," still with a thread of decency hanging over his doomed soul.

Extremely suspenseful and in some ways a human study that perchance the Cohen Brothers might have come up with. If you can see nothing in this film I can only wonder what you're missing in the rest of your three score years and ten? 8.5 out of ten, and don't even THINK about arguing!

Two professional assassins are sent to kidnap a 9 year old boy named Travis Knight (Harley Cross), who is under the United States Federal Witness Protection Program after witnessing a mob killing in Texas. Cohen (Roy Scheider) is the older, jaded assassin with a little bit of humanity still in him. Tate (Adam Baldwin) is the younger, hotheaded and psychopathic killer.

The film is a cinematic version of O. Henry's short story "The Ransom of Red Chief", which partially influenced both "Ruthless People" and "The Ref". The version here is significantly different than the original (as it involves no ransom and is much more violent) but has the general underlying concept intact.

Is it time for this film to be re-examined and re-evaluated as a lost 1980s action classic? Perhaps. While Harley Cross is a bit annoying (especially that accent) and Adam Baldwin pushes his role too far... this is still a fine piece of entertainment.

This is one cool thriller that takes place in the course of one night, Roy Scheider & Adam Baldwin are two hit-man who are to bring back a kid who may have witnessed something he shouldn't have, it is clear from the start that the two men don't like each other & the kid plays on this to his advantage in the hopes of escaping, Baldwin is the younger of the two & is a hothead with a short temper, Scheider is a veteran who is all business & knows that being careful is better than being over the top. Adam Baldwin gives a vicious performance as the hot-headed Tate, though a lot of his dialogue is badly dubbed over for content (despite the movie's R rating). Roy Scheider is ice-cold as Cohen, conceivable as a veteran killer suffering from hearing loss.

The story is very interesting and makes you listen as to what is going on. Some twist and turns with the hit men making a run after they shoot the witness and the guards not having a chance. Taking a hostage who causes more pain than they expected. The movie as a whole isn't the greatest, but it's not so much the plot that drives this movie. The characters of Cohen and Tate, their conflicting natures and constitutions is what makes this movie worth your time. As the tension mounts, you can sense the characters' hatred for one another. When the movie reaches it's climax, you don't really care who gets killed but you really want someone to get it. Now it's not boring as it has a bit off a pace but not too fast as to spoil a fantastic show.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Low budget, highly entertaining thriller where I cared about the outcome.

I cannot understand why this movie has not been given better reviews. One of those films which surprises you with its originality and which having seen it you cannot understand why it has not been given more screen time.

Brilliant professional acting between Baldwin and Scheider keeps you guessing till the end as to who is going to win the battle of wills between the two men and the boy. A terrific black comedy of errors which makes you feel almost sorry for the two hit men. It would be a mistake not to watch this movie simply because you have read the bad reviews of it on this site.

It deserves to be released worldwide on DVD.

Some moments of boredom and some interesting moments, that is the best way to describe "Cohen and Tate".

The movie didn't started off all that bad but from the moment on when the movie becomes a road-movie, the movie sort of sleeps in. Only a few moments know to keep your interest. Because it's a road movie, the movie is more or less more of the same all the time and becomes a bit tiresome to watch at moments.

Problem is that there are too many moments were too little is happening. All the characters do at those moments are talking but the characters themselves just aren't good and interesting enough to grab your interest, despite the good work from the actors themselves.

Especially Roy Scheider did a good job in his role of aging and halve deaf hit-men. Adam Baldwin does what he can do best, playing a psycho. Really, would he had gotten this part if he hadn't played Animal Mother in "Full Metal Jacket"? His acting is still lacking but he did a good job though.

It was a pretty good idea to let the kid set up the two hit-men against each other but it isn't really conceived good enough into the movie and besides, it's just not really believable, since a plan such as that needs subtlety and patience. Some things an 9 year old just neither has, especially not when he is on his way of getting killed.

Still pretty amazing to see how much talent got involved with this production. Victor J. Kemper's cinematography is really great at times and the movie features a couple of interesting compositions, that should remind you of the '70's style of film-making. Perhaps there also lays a problem. The movie tries to be too much like a '70's movie in its pace. dialog, action and basically everything else. Bill Conti's musical score is also sort of funny though, since it sounds like it was composed for a much better movie. The score is overblown at times, when there is basically very little happening on the actual screen.

It's still an OK movie to watch but by no means a great movie or one worth searching out.

6/10

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The nine year-old boy Travis Knight (Harley Cross) witnesses the murder of a Houston mobster. His parents and he go to a safe house in Oklahoma protected by three FBI agents under the witness protection program. However one agent betrays the group and the hitmen Cohen (Roy Scheider) and Tate (Adam Baldwin) kill the agents and Travis' parents. They kidnap Travis since a Mafia boss wants to know who killed the other mobster. Along their travel to Houston, Travis finds that Tate is a hotheaded psychopath that enjoys to kill while the veteran Cohen is a calmer professional killer. Travis try to put Cohen against Tate while tries to flee. What will happen to the trio?

The first thing that calls the attention in "Cohen and Tate" is the totally underrated IMDb User Rating. This excellent thriller by Eric Red is supported by a tense storyline well-supported by a magnificent screenplay and top-notch performances of Roy Scheider, Adam Baldwin and the boy Harley Cross. The character Travis Knight is extremely clever and his attitude is probably one of the greatest attraction of this little gem. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Criança por Testemunha" ("A Child as Witness")

With a momentary glance at the poster, Cohen & Tate appears to be somewhere in the realm of those buddy cop thrillers that proved so popular in the 1980s, with tough-guy poses and its two central characters named right there in the title accompanied by an ampersand. At least that's the impression I got. In fact, Eric Red's directorial debut is anything but. Part road movie and part tense thriller - and occasionally struggling when switching between the two - Cohen & Tate is a menacing, violent and often plain mental neo-noir, with a chilling performance by Roy Scheider at its centre. Often veering into territory marked by the Coen Brothers, Red, who also wrote the script, demands that you spend 90 minutes with two bickering, cold-blooded killers as the life of a child hangs in the balance. And it proves to be a pretty riveting experience, even though it requires you to suspend your disbelief for the duration.

We open at a farm house, where a seemingly all-American family are in hiding for unexplained reasons. FBI agents surround the house, but that doesn't stop hit-men Cohen (Scheider) and Tate (Adam Baldwin) from breaking in and murdering everyone in sight except the 9 year-old son, Travis (Harley Cross). Instead, they whisk him away in their car to deliver him to their bosses. What they have in store for him is unknown, as the eponymous anti-heroes are as much in the dark as we are. Yet they have made a terrible blunder: On the radio they learn that the father has survived and has already given descriptions of the killers to the police. The hot-headed Tate wants to ice the child right there and then, but the wiser, more level- headed Cohen insists on finishing the job as planned. Sensing distrust between the two men, Travis takes the opportunity to turn them against each other and plan his escape.

The film plays out from there as a series of vignettes, usually involving the increasingly volatile Tate going off the rails and threatening to kill young Travis. These screaming outbursts are repeated so often that it becomes unintentionally comical, similar in many ways to Bill Paxton's over-the-top character in Near Dark, which was also written by Red. Scheider, however, subtly oozes menace. He may be the more balanced of the two, but it's easy to believe that he's capable of executing a child. The mean-spirited tone works in favour of the film, which ultimately delivers its thrills most effectively when things turn really nasty. The majority of the action takes place in the claustrophobic confines of the car, and the film's main strength is the sharp and often amusing dialogue between the titular bad men. It's ridiculous and messy, but it's damn good fun, any film in which a character eats a box of matches to prove how crazy they are is a winner in my book.

When nihilism is the prime component running through your movie, the end result becomes a tricky tightrope-act: some films take their alleged pointlessness and weave it into something artistic and transcendent (having a visionary director helps); others just wallow in their excesses and, by the end, nothing has been imparted or conveyed. "Cohen and Tate" falls into the latter category. For 86 minutes, the film plays out like a first-year screen writing exercise (two mismatched mob hit men in a moving car with a kid who's witnessed a murder). Unfortunately, even the fair pairing of Roy Scheider (fantastic as the jaded old-timer) and Adam Baldwin (as a young, kill-crazy psycho) cannot raise writer-director Eric Red's clunky, motivation-weak, and outright contrived script to transcendent heights. What we have here is a fair crime thriller with some decent action and suspense, but a go-nowhere plot that, by the end, feels maddeningly unfinished. It also doesn't help that our child-in-peril (Harley Cross) gives one of the worst performances in screen history (nor does it make much sense that our bickering hit men would put tape over his mouth until the film is almost over).

4.5 out of 10

This was the film that first marked out for me the name Eric Red as one to watch.Not only a tense,character-driven thriller,but a wonderful ensemble piece to boot,with Alec Baldwin (not a name I knew,but one I've looked out for since) and Roy Scheider (working for that rarity:A filmmaker who understands his strengths and plays to them) providing perfect foils to one another-slipping from comedy to edgy tension and back again without breaking sweat. Don't bother with it if you're after cheap thrills n' spills-give it a try and think of the road movie Hitchcock might have made...

I bought the blu ray of this,hoping it was as good as some people say it is but it didn't impress me much.

I won't give plot spoilers but it is a violent crime thriller.

I just didn't like it much.

Scheider is the best thing about the film.

It seems to be a low budget film to me,it is not a bad film but just not individual enough for me.

For Roy Scheider fans "Cohen & Tate" is a must see. His hit man character "Cohen" is the whole film. Adam Baldwin as "Tate" is extremely one dimensional, and the kid is simply reading lines. The screenplay is exciting, bloody, and a real stretch of reality. Nevertheless the film is entertaining, and that is all that matters. If you like road movies, this is one to watch as Roy Scheider delivers the tough guy persona in "spades." Do not expect total realism, because several scenes will not hold up if you look too closely, especially regarding police procedure. I don't recommend viewing with your girlfriend, as she will most likely leave the room early on. This is a film about bad men doing bad things, and that's really all you should expect from "Cohen & Tate." - MERK

I have seen this film several times and I find it a great thriller full of suspense with three excellent actors, yes, because in addition to two great Roy Scheider and Adam Bladwin, the interpretation of a very young and very good Travis Knight, the chemistry that c 'is between the two killers and the boy is palpable and the direction of Eric Red is accurate and pressing.

A thriller that I highly recommend.

Harley Cross does fine work here as Travis Knight. Travis and his family were living out in the middle of nowhere in the witness protection program until their temporary hideout is infiltrated by gangsters. Travis is not only the sole survivor of the massacre, but also the only one who can identify the perpetrators. Two hit men known only as Cohen (Roy Scheider) and Tate (Adam Baldwin) are hired to kidnap the boy and drive him to their boss.

But, they're not dealing with just some kid. Travis actually turns out to be rather clever in what may seem like a helpless situation, figuring out Cohen and Tate's psychological weaknesses (Cohen is a by-the-book-no-questions-asked hit men while Tate takes pride in tormenting the smart-mouthed kid) and using it against them to protect himself.

It is a very simple film done quite well because it entirely character-driven. Surprisingly, it is quite a good thriller, despite the usual story of the hired hand and the mafia witnesses with great performances all around.

This is a little known thriller from the guy who wrote the screenplay for The Hitcher. Like that film, this one is a road movie.

Plot: two hit men rub out some mob witnesses but have to contend with a survivor, a plucky little kid.

Roy Scheider's performance as Cohen, the sleek professional hit-man is wonderful. When he slips on what looks like a pair of black rubber gloves at the start of the film, it somehow says almost all you need to know about him.

Adam Baldwin is equally impressive as the less slick and much less professional killer, the ominously psychopathic Tate, who likes to run over small animals while he drives...

This film is extremely tense in spots. And if you're a fan of films that end with a bang, you should enjoy the climactic confrontation between the cops, the killers, and that damned little kid! This might be Roy Scheider's last great role.

This is a rare film nowadays, and something of a hidden gem. Yes, it is that Eric Red who wrote and directed this picture. Many of his trademarks are here - an innocent boy who gets abducted by a bunch of brutal yet somehow attractive murderous outsiders; a dark, noirish feel throughout the film; and of course, it's a road movie. The film opens with a devastating scene that still has the power to disturb and becomes a roller coaster ride into the nightmarish world of two hit men who kidnap a child witness to a mob murder. Roy Schieder is excellent as the the ice-cold Cohen. But what really elevates this film into myth is the war of wills between Cohen, Tate and the little boy who does his best to drive a wedge between them. If you ever get a chance to watch this undiscovered masterpiece, don't miss it!

I began watching this movie on t.v. some weeks ago, but gave up after the first 10 minutes or so. At the start, the person on the witness protection scheme located in an isolated farmhouse becomes nervous about his exterior placed guards, and then asks the guard inside the house whether he can make a telephone call - only to discover the line has been cut.

Shortly afterwards, Roy Scheider as one of the witness's assassins turns up and duly executes the witness and his wife - upon which the Roy Scheider character duly picks up the wall telephone in the kitchen, dials a number, and then speaks: It is done!!!! That was it for me!