New Orleans natives may be slightly disappointed to find that a movie titled “Crescent City” — long a popular nickname for the storied Louisiana metropolis — actually is set in and around Little Rock, Ark. On the other hand, they might be happy to find that their hometown is not represented at all in this overplotted and instantly disposable drama, a bland gumbo of serial killer tropes, internal affairs investigation, Satanic sex addicts and buddy-cop shoot-’em-up stuff. The movie opens day-and-date Aug.
16 in limited theatrical runs as well as on digital platforms, but it’s really best suited for home screen perusing — just so viewers can intermittently hit pause and ask one another, “Wait, what the hell was that all about?” Terrence Howard and Esai Morales struggle mightily — and do more for the movie than it ever does for them — while attempting to impose some degree of plausibility (or at least coherence) on the convoluted and often contradictory goings-on. They do yeoman work here as veteran cops based in Little Rock, a location dutifully and repeatedly identified by extended exterior shots of the Little Rock Police Department. Howard plays Brian Sutter, a churchgoing family man haunted by flashbacks to the violent end of an ill-fated drug bust, while Morales is cast as Luke Carson, Brian’s longtime partner, a loose cannon whose interrogation tactics elicit this not-entirely-disapproving appraisal from their captain: “Jesus Christ! This guy thin.