the look is grimy and the atmosphere is grim; but what could have been a moody character study or a taut conspiracy thriller is instead a dreary procedural, a misbegotten mush of flashbacks, voice-overs and dead ends
director Brad Furman, deliver a gritty, well-paced and involving drama, with Johnny Depp giving a low-key but effective performance as LAPD detective Russell Poole and Forest Whitaker at his quirky and edgy best as a journalist named Jack Jackson
as a thriller, it never quite reaches its boiling point, which may be one reason it's been sitting on the shelf since 2018. But as the portrait of a man obsessed and the forces stacked up against him, it earns its stripes
an inexplicably dull cop drama; "City of Lies" revels in the complexity of the whole mess, skipping around in time and making things more confusing than they have to be
a muckraking drama that deserves to be seen; this is a compelling drama with real-world concerns that shouldn't be ignored, and it deserves better than to be the victim of an actor's offscreen sins
by Matthew Monagle [Austin Chronicle ]
by Richard Roeper [Chicago Sun-Times ]
