Synopsis
Los Angeles Police Department detective Russell Poole has spent years trying to solve his biggest case -- the murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur -- but after two decades, the investigation remains open. Jack Jackson, a reporter desperate to save his reputation and career, is determined to find out why. In search of the truth, the two team up and unravel a growing web of institutional corruption and lies.
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Cast
- Johnny DeppRussell Poole
- Forest WhitakerJack Jackson
- Toby HussDetective Fred Miller
- Dayton CallieLieutenant O'Shea
- Neil Brown Jr.Rafael Perez
- Shea WhighamFrank Lyga
- Xander BerkeleyEdwards
- Louis HerthumCity Attorney Stone
- Shamier AndersonDavid Mack
- Laurence MasonFBI Agent Dunton
Recommendations
- 80
We Got This Covered
Impassioned, engaging and eloquently constructed, City of Lies has much more to offer than first meets the eye. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
Still, in large part due to the stellar work from Depp and Whitaker, this is a valuable and somewhat illuminating look back at the senseless, stunning killings of two rap icons just six months apart. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
This is a compelling drama with real-world concerns that shouldn't be ignored, and it deserves better than to be the victim of an actor's offscreen sins. - 50
IGN
Even as its ambitions are laudable in casting a wide net over a variety of societal ills, the film can’t quite muster the will to follow through on those ambitions and instead succumbs too often to cliche when complexity was required. - 50
Movie Nation
The performances are solid, and the early scenes — recreating the crimes, etc. — are fascinating at a documentary level. Setting up the context is useful, a PD under a cloud and determined to avoid race riots that might return if dirty cops were in on all this. But the rabbit hole closed in for me about an hour in. - 50
Los Angeles Times
As the piles of Biggie-related material has proven, it’s perhaps impossible to cover everything this story is really about in under two hours. City of Lies makes an honest effort but doesn’t get the job done. - 42
IndieWire
In practice, City of Lies is so understandably overwhelmed by the sprawling mystery at its core that it never figures out what to ask of either history or itself. Or how. - 40
Variety
The truth is out there, but when pot and kettle go to battle, Hollywood best be careful using the term City of Lies to describe anything other than itself.
