Powerful casting helps compensate for weak writing in Crescent City, a mean-spirited film noir set in Little Rock, Arkansas. Familiar faces like Terence Howard, Esai Morales, and an effective Alec Baldwin have no trouble navigating the twists and turns in Rich Ronat’s script. If only they had better material to work with.
Spoiler alert: I’m not sure director RJ Collins always shows a scene honestly, especially once flashbacks come into play. Alfred Hitchcock famously toyed with unreliable scenes in Stage Fright, but it’s a tough strategy to justify (and one he abandoned quickly).
So stipulated, Crescent City opens with the drugging and murder of a cheating husband, whose decapitated corpse is discovered by cops Brian Sutter (Terrence Howard) and Luke Carson (Esai Morales). It’s the third murder in the area, suggesting a serial killer. As a result, their boss, Captain Howell (Alec Baldwin), assigns them a new partner, Jaclyn Waters (Nicky Whelan), a blonde originally from Australia.
Waters is actually an Internal Affairs agent investigating a shooting in which a teenager was killed during a drug bust. Brian, clearly suffering from some form of PTSD, has debilitating fits about the incident. Luke is hiding his own secrets. In a bizarre scene, we watch him rape the hostess of a local bar in a bathroom.
Brian’s wife is upset that he refuses to go to counseling. She’d been even angrier if she knew that Brian and Jackie are having an affair. They meet near the spot of one of the murders, and as the story unfolds Brian realizes he is being set up as a fall guy for the killer.
The most interesting thing about Brian is that he isn’t very bright. (No one is in Crescent City, apart from Baldwin’s Howell, a profane but clever cop who figures out the plot before his cops do.) Brian presents himself as a father figure with strong religious ties, leading to emotional conflicts that affect his work.
He’s also not a very good cop, missing glaring clues and giving inept interrogations. Howard adopts a thick accent that makes Brian seem even less intelligent.
Give credit to the filmmakers for being willing to go darker than necessary. With its corrupt cops, sex clubs, and deserted alleys, Crescent City presents Little Rock as a sort of minor league New Orleans, minus the bayous, food, and music. The atmosphere is moody and decadent enough to satisfy noir fans, but the plot keeps veering into strange digressions.
The filmmakers introduce a sex website with connections to Brian’s church, but fail to do anything with it. Or with an abuse victim who commits suicide. Or a murder victim from a Sex Anonymous group. Instead we get a couple of reasonably steamy sex scenes, a lot of bickering between Brian and Luke, and more red flags than viewers really need.
Baldwin is quick and efficient, Morales adds welcome depravity to his character, and Whelan somehow manages to fit her Australian cop into a deep South milieu. And Maria Camila Giraldo shines in a thankless role as a cop who turns up at every Little Rock homicide. But Crescent City adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
Credits
Director: RJ Collins. Writer: Rich Ronat. Producers: Denise Loren, Eduard Osipov, Vince Jolivette, David Lipper, Robert A. Daly, Jr. Director of photography Alex Salahi. Edited by Eric Potter. Production designer: Julian Brown. Cast: Terrence Howard, Esai Morales, Nicky Whelan, Alec Baldwin, Michael Sirow, Weston Cage Coppola, Rose Lane Sanfilippo, Maria Camila Giraldo.
In theaters, on digital and on demand. Photos courtesy Lionsgate. Top: Howard, Whelan. Bottom: Howard, Giraldo, Morales.
