Crescent City Review | A Great Alec Baldwin Can’t Save Nasty Cop Thriller

Summary

• Crescent City
  seems to reflect the psychology of its main character — angry, sexist, unlikable, and ridiculous. But its moments of violence are well-done and genuinely effective.
• Despite a grim whodunit plot and some genuine tension, this crime mystery is deflated by the many fake-outs and red herrings it teases along the way.
• Alec Baldwin is extremely fun, and Nicky Whelan does her best, but everyone else is lifeless in this icky, bland movie.

Seeing Academy Award nominee Alec Baldwin play an angry Boston law enforcement official in The Departed was an underrated high point of Martin Scorcese’s 2006 masterpiece. Almost 20 years later, Baldwin is back behind the agency desk in a similarly hotheaded persona, yet the end result won’t exactly strike the same kind of chord with movie buffs. Baldwin is fresh off his criminal trial tied to the fatal Rust shooting in 2021, however, so that might be enough for curious folks to tune in to Crescent City, out now.

Another embattled Oscar nominee leads this small ensemble: Terrence Howard, who’s been making the wrong sort of waves in Hollywood of late, partly thanks to bonkers scientific claims made on Joe Rogan’s podcast and beyond. There come periods in actors’ careers where they simply need the work, and the vibe couldn’t be more present in a production like Crescent City. From director RJ Collins, the grim whodunit might fail to stand out among the myriad cop thrillers, but it’s a bit of a hoot seeing Baldwin back in action.

Crescent City May Like Its Awful Characters Too Much

Crescent City

2/5

When a small southern town is terrorized by a relentless serial killer everyone becomes a suspect… including local authorities. As the body count rises and the dark mystery deepens, the chief detective becomes haunted by the horrors of his past.

Release Date August 16, 2024

Director RJ Collins

Runtime 1h 43m

Writers Rich Ronat

Distributor(s) Lionsgate

Pros

• A surprising and guttural use of heavy violence achieves its shocking effect.
• Nicky Whelan is good in a bad role, and Alec Baldwin is fantastic.

Cons

• Crescent City seems to side with its mean-hearted, misogynistic, immoral characters.
• Terrence Howard and Esai Morales are unfortunately on autopilot here.
• The abundance of red herrings and fake-outs get annoying, and the ending is unfulfilling.

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The film’s title alludes to the southern town where this grim, by-the-numbers story is set. All eyes might be on Oscar nominees Howard and Baldwin, given their recent track records, but the script by Rich Ronat clearly envisioned cop Luke Carson (Esai Morales) as the lead with the most screen time. Howard plays his usual sidekick, Brian Sutter. The fact that Morales is the main character, and that the content of Crescent City reflects his personality, leads one to believe that this film is not a critique of bad men but an endorsement of them.

Morales leans into the distasteful and misogynistic ways in which Carson speaks to his colleagues and sleeps around with women at the trashy bars and clubs he frequents. So it’s no surprise he doesn’t exactly bat an alarmed eye when his team is brought to a daytime crime scene to see a horrific sight: a neatly decapitated corpse inside a vehicle.

This is just one example of how Crescent City director Collins is trying to distinguish his story from the countless other edgy cop thrillers out there — with these striking, hard R-rated moments of extreme violence that catch you off-guard in eerily uncomfortable ways. The film’s opening sequence involves an unnamed stranger entering a house party at a mansion and getting offered a spiked drink by some sort of sex worker, who then proceeds to casually slit his throat. Oof. The list of killings goes on, and it’s up to Carson and Sutter to nail the bastard. But who is it? A Satanist? A sadistic woman?

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Nicky Whelan Valiantly Tries but Fails to Make This Movie Likable

Certain clues lead the duo to the local church run by a well-meaning but somewhat shady pastor (Michael Sirow), but perhaps that’s a dead end, too. Carson and Sutter’s boss, Captain Howell (Baldwin), brings in extra help in the form of Australian transplant Jaclyn Waters (Nicky Whelan), helping to balance out the toxic amount of testosterone (by about 5%). That doesn’t stop Carson from constantly belittling her, despite Carson taking a liking to her. The way Waters ultimately reacts makes everything even more cringe.

Between Carson and Waters’ dynamic, the over-the-top masculinity, and the elongated sex scene, Crescent City is plagued by a kind of ickiness. It feels like a hard-R movie on Cinemax at three in the morning. The film finds its thrills by exploiting certain demographics’ desire for lust and violence, but in ways that make no sense for the characters or have little logic, such as sex between two characters who logically (and emotionally) have no business getting frisky with each other. At least Crescent City loudly broadcasts who it’s for — divorced dads, drug dealers, and frat boys who want something to play in the background.

Whodunit, Who Cares? But Baldwin Is a Blast

Crescent City does develop some effective tension as everyone becomes suspected for these brutal, unexplained killings. Is it someone inside the department? Is that why outside help, in the form of Waters, was brought in? The principal players have their own skeletons in the closet, which resurface once mass hysteria across Crescent City reaches a tipping point; as a result, there are actually so many red herrings and fake-outs that it becomes annoying. Why is it taking so long for the forces to bring the serial killer to justice? Carson and Sutter’s boss isn’t pleased, allowing Baldwin to shine with rage in his limited scenes.

Related: The Best Alec Baldwin Movies, Ranked

Honestly, a 90-minute movie centering on Baldwin putting the dimwitted Howard and Morales personas in their place would have been a more entertaining end result. Baldwin’s scenes are perhaps the most entertaining, since 99% of the dialogue involves him hotly disciplining and ridiculing the crooked cops, with his signature brand of humor occasionally shining through. It’s like a VOD crime thriller twist on his Glengarry Glen Ross character.

Baldwin is great, so you’ll find yourself begging for more of him, especially since Morales and Howard come off as more stiff, one-trick ponies here. We know they’re both capable of more, of course, especially since Morales has dabbled in a wide variety of crime- and police-related projects over the decades, tackling juicy roles on both sides of the law (NCIS: LA, Ozark, Chicago P.D.). Oh, well. On to the next one, Lionsgate. Crescent City is now available in theaters, on demand and digital. You can watch it on YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at Home, or on Prime Video through the link below:

Watch Crescent City

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