City of Lies

Impassioned, engaging and eloquently constructed, City of Lies has much more to offer than first meets the eye.

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.

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.

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.

Ultimately, City of Lies is more James Elroy than docudrama, resulting in a tired police thriller that hitched its wagon to an untenable star.

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.

The look is grimy and the atmosphere is grim; but what could have been a moody character study or a taut conspiracy thriller is instead a dreary procedural, a misbegotten mush of flashbacks, voice-overs and dead ends.

Amazing film ! Depp and Whitaker are great together ! Highly recommend this film .

it was so good would highly recommend it bec it gives a moral lesson and a main emotional massage

Yet another corrupt cop drama. The one is based on the true story of a LA detective (Johnny Depp very underplayed) who tried to expose the truth behind the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.. The story is framed by extensive, dry discussions with a reporter (Forest Whitaker playing the usual), who delves into the case 20 years later. Their review of the facts alternates between scenes from the original investigation with a uninspired style that lacks much punch. Even as it exposes the alleged corruption, director Brad Ferman never manages to bring any sense of outrage to the proceedings. NOTE: Violetta Wallace, the rapper’s mother, plays herself and does a commendable job.

The title is notorious and more than adequate for a film that seems to be built on suspicions, assumptions and even to some extent, conspiracy theories. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that it talks about a real case. A notably high profile case. In the end, it's certainly fiction, the credits themselves say so, but that doesn't prevent this from being quite irresponsible to a certain degree. And it's not like City of Lies creates any kind of damaging speculation, but it also doesn't offer anything especially revealing or crucial about the case at hand. It's merely noise. Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker are effective leads, if you consider what this story has to offer, but neither of them is able to keep this ship afloat, as it is sinking through many different holes.

The film is DEPRESSING. Depp is obsessed and looks so old. On top of all that the movie jumps around so much it is hard to follow. Not a difficult movie concept, but somebody must have thought jumping around back and forth would be artistic. It was not.