Two unsolved killings that shook American hip-hop sit at the centre of City of Lies, a 2019 crime thriller directed by Brad Furman. Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker lead a story about a detective who cannot let a case go and a reporter who needs to understand why it was never closed.
What is City of Lies about?
Russell Poole, a Los Angeles Police Department detective, has given years of his life to a single investigation: the murders of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Two decades on, the file is still open and nobody has been held to account. Jack Jackson is a journalist whose career and reputation are both in trouble, and he comes looking for Poole with one question: how can a case this famous stay unsolved for so long? What begins as an interview becomes a working partnership. As the two men go back through old evidence, witness accounts and abandoned leads, they keep meeting the same obstacle, an institution that appears more concerned with protecting itself than with finding answers. The story follows their search through layers of corruption and official silence, and the price that search demands from each of them.
About the cast
Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker head the cast, and much of the running time belongs to scenes shared by the two leads. Around them stands a group of experienced supporting players: Toby Huss, Dayton Callie, Neil Brown Jr., Shea Whigham, Xander Berkeley and Melanie Benz. Brad Furman directs.
Context & significance
City of Lies is an American production that runs 112 minutes and sits in both the crime and thriller genres. Its subject comes from real events. The deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. are among the most discussed open cases in modern music history, and the screenplay approaches them through the people who investigated rather than through the artists themselves. The result is closer to a procedural about files, sources and stalled leads than to a music biography. Viewers drawn to true-crime stories, police-corruption dramas or the history of hip-hop will recognise the territory, while the pairing of a detective with a reporter gives the film the shape of a classic investigative two-hander.
Watching City of Lies on Ktime
City of Lies can be streamed on K-Time, a Persian-focused service built for the Iranian diaspora, with menus and browsing available in Farsi. Reading this page is free; playing the film requires logging in with a K-Time account. No Persian dub or Persian subtitle track is flagged for this title at present.