Crescent City (2024): Small Town Big Suspense Killer

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On the southern region of the United States, another movie based on violence and death is expected to be release. This up coming crime thriller is set to bring its audience on a wild ride of treason and betray through a seemingly peaceful town that becomes terrorized by a vengeful psychopath. This dramatic film directed by John Stump tells the story of a group of people, starring Terrence Howard, Esai Morales, and Alec Baldwin, living in a small town threatened by someone who they had no clue existed or was so close to them. As the numbers of the victims increase, the anxiety of the locals in town escalates, and it becomes difficult to distinguish between the friend and the enemy, the culprit and the victim. The major issues of the movie demonstrate trust or lack of it, corruption, and the effects of living under the constant threat of danger. The plot is situated in the southern region of USA, a setting which the authors uses to increase the feeling of enclosure of the community under attack, while the case is ongoing, the audience is guaranteed a ride full of suspense that will leave them questioning everything up to the last scene.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18884172/
• Platform:
• Release: August 16, 2024

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Plot and Themes

A Community Under Siege

The plot is based on a number of savage killings that shake a small southern community, scaring the population to death as it keeps going, the scenario of the show describes how fear starts affecting the community and the lives of the three detectives involved in a complicated case. Handy’s character has personal demons that affect her work, while Burgess’s character has personal issues with killers, which complicates their investigation. The possibility of the ordinary transforming into the sinister is depicted in the film due to the effects of fear and paranoia that it presents. The deeper the investigation goes the young people of the community start unwrapping the skeletons that are hiding in the closet and while the community is in danger of being ripped apart.

Part of the core of this story is the examination of the relationship between the towns people and local law enforcement with the police force itself under scrutiny, themes of corruption, loyalty, and abuse of power come to the forefront, a history of wrong doings that got them on the radar of every local. This adds another layer of tension to the story as the detectives must go through not only the hunt for a killer but also the ambiguous waters of small town politics.

Cast and Characters

The movie brings together a well known cast that brings depth and realistic to their roles:

• Terrence Howard as Brian Sutter: Specializing in energetic performances, Howard presumably plays one of the leading detectives who is dealing with the case’s and his personal struggles.
• Esai Morales as Luke Carson: Morales who has featured in “La Bamba” and “Bad Boys” among other films raises the stature of the ensemble.
• Nicky Whelan as Jaclyn Waters: This film is quite different from her previous films; she has moved from comedies to this tough crime thriller.
• Alec Baldwin as Captain Howell: Hiring Baldwin, an actor with lots of experience, adds celebrity appeal and substance to this senior law enforcement agent.The relations of these characters will be a focus of the film, and this is a good sign. Morales has the charm, Whelan the all round qualities, Baldwin the experience to make Howard’s intensity benefit the plot of this show.

R. J. Collins becomes director for this thriller, prior background in advertising and his previous collaboration with various genres point to a different kind of visual approach that has potential to push the movie past the typical performance, popular opinion online but in my opinion most of this movies perform very average, very recently I saw Parallel (2024) a movie that I did enjoy where Collins was executive producer. Most of the shooting was done in Little Rock, in Arkansas, production concluded in September of 2023, this production has several experienced personnel such as producers Robert A. Daly Jr. , Vince Jolivette, and David Lipper. Source Source

Audience Expectations and Critical Speculation

There is not much information out there about the movie when it comes to early screens, reviews or comments by critics so either this movie is not so popular and there are no real expectations about or its just under the radar, I actually pick it up from the calendar when I notice Terrence Howard was in it, personally find him a good actor across most of the productions he has been part of, on TV and big screen.

Part of the audience might be expecting the movie to resemble classics of the genre, which means that many are expecting a tense, suspenseful movie that will benefit from the closed environment of a small town.

I would not be too hype about it, just consider it another good one time watch at least entertaining and that is why the success of the movie depends on the combination of the starring actors with a strong, intriguing, and logically constructed story free of cliches of the chosen genre. I can see this story been very interesting with a lot of suspense, very recent I saw Presumed Innocent (2024), a TV series related to a murder who no body knew who he or she was and was a very close case with very few people involve, this could be the same situation as during the trailer we can notice how Brian and Jaclyn who are part of the investigation are been frame by some one who potentially is or not the killer they looking for. This concept keeps the audience thinking and trying to figure out how things will evolve as the movie progress, I guess its easier to keep the audience interested across episodes rather than fit everything in a 2hr movie but it will all come down to how realistic the acting can be, that is where the primary success of the film will probably lie in giving not only the audience a good share of thrills and suspense but also food for thought as to how people react to fear and how it affects them.

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