Crescent City begins with a sweeping shot of exurban Little Rock, twinkling with menace. A man who is about to be murdered is weaving through the backroads of Arkansas in his vehicle, speeding towards a steamy hookup. A menacing synth swells to imply erotic danger. All the while, a local news report plays over the radio: “There have been a series of murders in the past month here in Little Rock. The police have yet to comment. The killer’s victims are men and women between the ages of twenty and forty years old.”
Everybody got that?
Crescent City is a mess: compositionally, aesthetically, conceptually. The film is billed as killer-thriller camp, but fails so poorly in execution that it could be more generously described as parody of the genre. Director RJ Collins and screenwriter Rich Ronat both deserve equal credit for this travesty — the film is rotted from the bottom up.
There is nothing novel about Crescent City’s setup, but there is a seed of potential. Terrence Howard (Crash, Empire) plays Brian, a dedicated cop who’s seen too much, trying his darndest to be a family man despite intrusive bouts of PTSD. Esai Morales (NYPD Blue, Bad Boys) plays Brian’s partner-against-crime Luke: a charismatic detective with a deviant streak. This duo’s failure to solve a spate of murders has pushed their aggressively negligent Captain (Alec Baldwin who despite the film’s promotions is barely here) to call in backup. Enter Agent Jacyln Waters (played by Australian actress Nicky Whelan), a collected officer that clearly has something to hide.
The casting choices feel a little out of place, given the film’s southern setting — but the script is so weak that misplaced accents are the least of the film’s problem. Our leads share no chemistry, banter or affection. The script affords its leads no discernible skills, competencies or endearing qualities. And there’s not really much for them do to or solve: what we get is an hour and a half of detectives looking frustrated, fumbling in and out of cars, standing around in parking lots.
And yet Crescent City, somehow, barrels on for close to two hours, clumsily deploying every stale, over-parodied killer-thriller trope established over the last three decades to keep things moving. Pop-psychology is delivered as novel insight into human cognition. Juvenile depictions of sex and BDSM are framed as depraved hardcore romp. Police abuse is dolled up as heroic machismo. Retro-grade transphobia is deployed as unsettling horror. We even get some 90’s style satanic panic!
Halfway through Crescent City, I began to question if I was missing something: Was I actually watching some avant-garde satire?
Inspired viewers may try to recast Crescent City as satirical masterpiece. If not for failure in every other aspect of this film’s composition, that may have been possible. Scenes frequently cut too quickly (usually hiding the poor prop designs on mangled plastic corpses) or linger too long on uninspired sets, interrupting the slow-build of tension so necessary for a thriller. The cast is directionless: looking lost in the background or wandering in and out of frame in the middle of shots. The plot spins up so many loose threads that frustrate even the most skilled viewer’s capacity for making sense of what is going on. But don’t worry if you lose track: None of this coheres into any payoff in narrative or character development. The film’s mystery is concluded in a series of forced, rushed expositions in the last few minutes.
Spite viewers may find some ironic joy in a viewing of Crescent City. But the biggest mystery posed by the film is how something like this is financed, produced, and released.
Crescent City is currently available for streaming.
