2. Cohen & Tate (1989)
Genre: Thriller
Written and directed by Eric Red, the writer of The Hitcher and Near Dark, Cohen & Tate is a tightly paced, tightly wound tale of two mob hitmen paired together to kidnap a young boy, Travis Knight, who witnessed a gangland murder and deliver him to their bosses in Houston. Just like he did in The Hitcher, Red ratchets the tension by having the two leads clash throughout. Adam Baldwin plays the young gun Tate, an eager, hot-headed psychopath who whilst the ever classy Roy Schneider (in his finest role outside of Jaws) is the older, measured, and oh-so-tired-of-this-life, Cohen. The film opens in gloriously violent fashion when the two assassins storm a witness protection home in a twelve-gauge assault on the senses, Tate channelling the Terminator as he blasts everything in sight. As soon as the carnage comes to a halt, the character fireworks begin. As soon as they have the boy and are on their way, its clear he has no time and no respect for Tate:
youre a stupid, sloppy hothead. You used six cartridges on the woman and FBI agent when two would have done it just because you like the sight of blood. Youre a halfass, who has no business working with me. Cohen is also angry. He always works alone yet his bosses insisted he works with Tate - which means they dont trust him anymore. And as he explains to his brash accomplice:
in this business you dont get a gold watch, What you do get one day when youre not looking is a brief pain in the back of your head and a quick glimpse of your brains flying out before they scrape you off the sidewalk. Travis, watching the antagonism unfurl from the back seat, soon realises that his only chance of survival is to play the two killers off one another, hoping that they kill each other in the process, and so the fun begins. A lot of the film takes place inside the car but its by no means dull. Its the confined space that allows the sparks to fly and the tension to rise. The claustrophobia of being trapped with someone you hate is palpable. And when thats someone who brandishes a semi-automatic as readily as France surrenders then it really is edge of your seat stuff. Fear not, adrenalin fans, for there's plenty of the action outside the car, most notably a tense stalk-and-shoot in an oil field, and the body count grows as the animosity between the hitmen boils over from insults to murder. This is a glorious B movie with strong noir elements and plenty of violence. A true throwback to video's heyday. Cohen & Tate was released on limited edition DVD by MGM and is now only available through specialist sellers, occasionally popping up on Amazon.