Terrence Howard and Esai Morales play Little Rock police officers with dark secrets as they investigate a series of gruesome murders.

New Orleans residents might be a little disappointed to learn that a film titled “Crescent City” — long a popular nickname for the storied Louisiana metropolis — is set in and around Little Rock, Arkansas. Then again, they might be pleased to learn that their hometown isn’t represented at all in this overplotted, instantly disposable drama, a bland gumbo of serial killers, internal affairs investigations, satanic sex addicts and buddy-cop shootouts. The film opens in limited theatrical release and on digital platforms on August 16, but it will be best enjoyed on home screens — so viewers can occasionally press pause and ask each other, “Wait, what the hell was that about?”

Terrence Howard and Esai Morales struggle mightily — and do more for the film than the film ever does for them — as they attempt to impose some degree of plausibility (or at least coherence) on the complicated and often contradictory events. They’re doing yeoman work as veteran cops in Little Rock, a location dutifully and repeatedly identified by extended exterior shots of the Little Rock police station.

Howard plays Brian Sutter, a churchgoer haunted by flashbacks to the violent end of a fateful drug bust, while Morales is cast as Luke Carson, Brian's longtime partner, a loose cannon whose interrogation tactics elicit this not entirely disapproving assessment from their captain: "Jesus Christ! This guy thinks he's Dirty Harry."