The infamous murder of The Notorious B.I.G, shortly after the also-unsolved-killing of Tupac Shakur, is given the whodunnit treatment in “City of Lies.” Here’s a movie that bungles up the intrigue and labyrinthine mysteries of the Biggie Smalls murder conspiracy.
Finally hitting screens four years after principal photography finished, and the multiple delays that followed, this adaptation of Randall Sullivan’s novel has L.A.P.D. detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp) obsessed with the Biggie murder, but after two decades, the murder remains unsolved. “Jack” Jackson (Forest Whitaker), a journalist desperate to crack the case in order to save his downhill writing career, teams up with Poole to find some answers. It turns out that the music industry, gangs and the LAPD may have all been involved. Death Row Records boss Suge Knight is a natural villain.
All the pieces are there for an engrossing watch, but what do we get? A muddled, meandering mess about a washed-up cop and a desperate journalist. Director Brad Furman should have zeroed in on the growing web of institutional corruption and lies, but his film keeps going back and forth in time, from the moment Biggie was shot to 18 years later.
Characters come and go in the convoluted screenplay heavily inspired by David Fincher’s “Zodiac.” Much like Fincher’s masterwork, “City of Lies” is not really about solving the murder, because it’s never been solved, but more about obsession, frustration, and how some things in life cannot be tied up neatly in the end. However, Furman’s film lacks the focus needed; it can’t seem to properly juggle all the storylines and characters together, to the point where it starts to play out like a blurry and shapeless maze.
An unsolved case that is both fascinating and frustrating in its underlying mysteries, Jackson ended up winning a Peabody award for his incisive investigation of it, but “City of Lies” won’t win anything (unless Razzies count) because, in the end, it amounts to nothing at all.
SCORE: D