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City of Lies
(Saban Films)
By Lucas Allen
Who killed the two iconic hip-hop artists known as Tupac Skakur and The Notorious B.I.G.? This question has haunted fans and listeners since the aftermath of the East Coast/West Coast rivalry of the mid-to-late 90s. Though these unsolved murders were already subjects of documentaries and TV specials, the new crime drama “City of Lies” tries to interweave a true story with human drama. It’s based on the 2003 nonfiction book “LAbyrinth,” by Randall Sullivan, who also wrote a follow-up novel in 2019 on the same subject called “Dead Wrong.”
After the murder of Biggie Smalls shocked the world in 1997, LAPD detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp) was suddenly thrust into the case after one of the cops was killed by another during a road rage incident. It turns out that the slain officer, Gaines (Amin Joseph), had close ties with Death Row Records’ executive Suge Knight along with several other LAPD officers. With the help of homicide detective Fred Miller (Toby Huss), Poole digs deeper into possible connections between the department and Biggie’s murder as well as Tupac’s murder. But time and time again, his superior, Lt. O’Shea (Dayton Callie), as well as other decorated officers try to block his efforts.
In 2015, the now-retired Poole is being interviewed by journalist Jack Jackson (Forest Whitaker) for a 20th anniversary piece. Poole shows him all the known evidence plus other possible connections to the murders like a few criminal cops he came across. But like before, Jackson finds himself at one dead end after another and his working relationship with Poole threatens his writing career.
Unfortunately, this movie has little reason to exist other than provide mouthpieces on the investigation and the conspiracy that followed. If you already know all about these events, then there’s no reason to see this movie because it doesn’t give you anything new and exciting but to throw at you at the same alleged and supposed facts you already heard before. The flashback scenes are mainly there to pad out the movie and not give you any interesting insight but to watch actors over-melodramatize their dialogue in cringe-worthy fashion.
Worse, the present scenes don’t do it justice when they’re fictionizing Poole’s later years in a dumb way. In real life, he didn’t become a hermit after leaving the force and still has a family, yet this movie paints him as a lost soul with nowhere else to go but the case he obsessed over. Even the character of Jack Jackson is suspect when he’s just a stand-in for every modern hipster demanding social justice. By the end, you’ll be left unsatisfied and horribly depressed by the experience.
That’s not to say the two main actors don’t do a good job. Depp keeps it mostly casual in a fine performance. There are times when he looks bored and considering the legal trouble he went through with this film, one may not be surprised. Whitaker is also fine despite not giving much direction to bring more depth to his character. The way these two actors have some good friendly chemistry in some scenes, it makes you wish they are in a much better movie. “City of Lies” is a flat and unsatisfying true crime drama when there’s hundreds of other films like this you could do better. The drama is so over-the-top and uninspired, the filmmakers ought to be arrested for gross negligence in proper storytelling.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for language throughout, some violence, and drug use)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 1.75 Stars (Out of Four)
