City of Lies (2021) * *

 

Directed by: Brad Furman

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker, Shea Whigham, Neil Brown, Jr., Dayton Callie

Brad Furman's City of Lies delves into the unsolved murder of Chris Wallace (aka The Notorious B.I.G.), the famous rapper shot and killed in the wee hours of the morning of March 9, 1997.  This was nearly six months after Tupac Shakur's slaying on the Las Vegas strip.  The media speculated an "East Coast/West Coast" feud between rivaling artists.  Detective Russell Poole (Depp) is assigned to the case and finds he is stonewalled because some LAPD cops moonlight for Death Row executive Marion "Suge" Knight and Notorious B.I.G.'s death opens a Pandora's Box of LAPD corruption.

City of Lies opens nearly twenty years after Wallace's shooting, with Poole still trying to piece together who shot Wallace.  He kept a promise to Wallace's mother Voletta (playing herself) to solve the murder, even after he was kicked off the case and forced to retire.  Poole teams up with journalist Jack Jackson (Whitaker), who is writing a historical article on Wallace and finds himself trying to solve the murder as well.   Was Poole ousted because he was coming too close to the truth which would blow the lid off of the department's corruption?  They've already taken a hit with Rodney King, OJ Simpson, and the Rampart investigations.  Being implicated in Wallace's death would be one more turn of the screw.

Despite the strong performance by Depp as a dogged, but world-weary former detective, and some solid supporting work, City of Lies buckles under its own weight.  It doesn't crackle with intensity like a superb police procedural should.  It never lifts off, even though the public remains interested in the high-profile unsolved murder.  How is it Wallace's killing is still not solved nearly thirty years later?  City of Lies believes it has the answer, but it scarcely brings those answers to life.