City of Lies 2018 detective movie
City of Lies (2018, United States)
In 2015, Los Angeles Times reporter Darius Jackson prepares an article about the death of rapper Notorious B.I.G., who was shot in 1997 while leaving the Petersen Automotive Museum. One of the people Jackson contacts regarding the case is the former LAPD detective Russell Poole, who was in charge of the investigation. Poole is not keen to help him, and he has reasons not to - he is a disgruntled and disillusioned after the way he was treated by the police department. While he gives Jackson the summary of the case, he mentions that this was just the tip of the iceberg he was trying to uncover while he was still in law enforcement. According to Poole, he was stopped because his investigation was leading towards uncomfortable questions about the possible involvement of police officers not only in the murder, but also in the gangs operating in Los Angeles. Jackson is reluctant to believe in everything Poole is telling him, especially after learning that he was forced out of the police force and seen as mentally unstable.
Based on the book LAbyrinth by Randall Sullivan, the movie tries to put together the theory that would link the death of Notorious B.I.G. and murder of Tupac Shakur 6 months earlier. While the theory seems plausible enough to assume that there must have been a link between those events, the movie is good enough to tell her coherently, the main cast does the heavy lifting here. The narrative built via flashbacks and interactions with different characters was perhaps not the best choice, the disgruntled former police officer becomes an unreliable narrator, some aspects are not exposed enough, while others are over-exposed. It was an interesting and important movie that highlighted how the LAPD worked in the 1990s or early 2000s, but with time the death of Notorious B.I.G. becomes a footnote, not the main point of the plot.
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