Review: City Of Lies

Image courtesy of Saban Films.

Brad Furman's long delayed "City of Lies" - it was supposed to be released in 2018, but was held up for release for several years - is a case of a film that should have been much better than it is. The material is there - Detective Russell Poole's investigation into the murder of The Notorious B.I.G. and a reporter (Forest Whitaker as Jack Jackson, who is based somewhat on Randall Sullivan, who wrote the nonfiction "LAbyrinth") who is seemingly the only person who believes him - but the execution feels a little stale.

This is not a bad film, even though it's one that steals most of its moves from much better works of its type - namely, David Fincher's "Zodiac." Much like that masterwork, "City of Lies" plays like an obsessive's case files regarding an unsolvable mystery - in this case unsolvable because the LAPD seemingly doesn't want to solve it.

The fictionalized Jackson is a reporter writing a piece on the 20th anniversary of Biggie's death who becomes interested in Poole (Johnny Depp), once a decorated LAPD detective who has since been shunned by the department and now lives in an apartment with photographic evidence from the 1997 death of the iconic rapper strewn across his wall.

The strained nature of the relationship between Jackson and Poole seems to exist for dramatic purposes, and so do the endless scenes in which Jackson gets information from Poole, runs it by the LAPD, whose leaders dismiss it as nonsense and try to sway Jackson against Poole, only for him to run back to Poole to relay the messages. The manner in which Jackson is seemingly played by both sides so easily makes it hard to swallow that this is a guy who won the George Foster Peabody Award.

While Poole is dismissed as a crackpot by the department, according to this movie at least, Voletta Wallace (Biggie's mother) appears to trust him, and Poole's stories about crooked cops working for Suge Knight, the much feared Death Row records magnate who was seemingly both on good terms with the Bloods gang, but also allegedly had LAPD officers on his staff, some of whom - Poole claims - were involved in the Biggie shooting.

Various clips during the East Coast/West Coast feud in which Tupac Shakur and Wallace found themselves engulfed are strewn about the film as are some tidbits - apparently, rappers DJ Quik, Foxy Brown and Kurupt were attending the party where Wallace was before he was shot - and quite a bit of information from the investigation kept me interested throughout the proceedings.

And yet, "City of Lies" felt like a missed opportunity. There's some discussion early on about the history of the LAPD's abuses and mistreatment of black men - the Rodney King case is mentioned - and the OJ Simpson case comes into play (one of the allegedly dirty cops that Poole names was apparently represented by Johnnie Cochran), but all of that material was used to much better effect in the remarkable documentary "OJ: Made in America," whereas here it's just window dressing.

Whitaker does what he can with a role that was written to essentially move forward various plot points, while Depp gives a certain wary grace to Poole. But "City of Lies" is a whole lot of fascinating material in search of a better film. For those fascinated by the case, it'll do, but there have been better documentaries on this same subject matter.