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. In theory, the temporal pincer attack of Christian Contreras’ script might have contrasted the naivete of a young man who trusted that the LAPD had cleaned up its act after the riots in ’92, with the jaded obsession of an older man who tumbled down the rabbit-hole for so long that he’s lucky to have emerged with a pulse - if not a pension. 'French Dispatch' and 'Last Night in Soho' Start to Lift Stagnant Specialty Box Office 'The Matrix Resurrections' Review: The Boldest and Most Personal Franchise Sequel Since 'The Last Jedi'Ģ020-2021 Network TV Shows: What's Renewed, What's Canceled, What's in Limbo New Movies: Release Calendar for December 22, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films Depp plays a real guy by the name of Russell Poole, and he plays him twice over across parallel timelines: One in 1997 when Poole is an oblivious gumshoe who sticks his nose into something that’s stink covers the entire LAPD, and one almost 20 years later when he’s an unemployed Miss Havisham in his late 50s who cosplays as a detective (complete with serial killer stringboards wallpapering his musty apartment) because he’s still haunted by the case that ruined his life. Not since “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” has a title saved film critics from so much tedious plot summary.

It’s never a great sign when a true crime book with a 29-word title is squeezed into an 112-minute movie, let alone when that true crime book is about two of the most notorious unsolved murders in human history, and the movie adapted from it was directed by Brad Furman (a solid base-hitter who’s still swinging for another “The Lincoln Lawyer”) and stars Johnny Depp as a retired LAPD detective who says things like “I’m obsessed with the truth, that’s my sickness.” Even if “City of Lies” hadn’t sat on the shelf for the last 30 months - its planned release in September 2018 was allegedly postponed because of a lawsuit that the film’s location manager filed against Depp - it wouldn’t exactly be a huge surprise that this under-baked and overstretched police thriller was a total waste of the roadkill-like hairpiece that Shea Whigham wears in it.īased on Randall Sullivan’s 2002 tome “LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal,” Furman’s movie tells the story of, um, all of that.

Notorious big death scene