44
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- Impassioned, engaging and eloquently constructed, City of Lies has much more to offer than first meets the eye.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperChicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperStill, in large part due to the stellar work from Depp and Whitaker, this is a valuable and somewhat illuminating look back at the senseless, stunning killings of two rap icons just six months apart.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeThe Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeThis 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.
- 50IGNZaki HasanIGNZaki HasanEven as its ambitions are laudable in casting a wide net over a variety of societal ills, the film can’t quite muster the will to follow through on those ambitions and instead succumbs too often to cliche when complexity was required.
- 50Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThe performances are solid, and the early scenes — recreating the crimes, etc. — are fascinating at a documentary level. Setting up the context is useful, a PD under a cloud and determined to avoid race riots that might return if dirty cops were in on all this. But the rabbit hole closed in for me about an hour in.
- 50Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayLos Angeles TimesNoel MurrayAs the piles of Biggie-related material has proven, it’s perhaps impossible to cover everything this story is really about in under two hours. City of Lies makes an honest effort but doesn’t get the job done.
- 42IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichIn 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. Or how.
- 40VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeThe truth is out there, but when pot and kettle go to battle, Hollywood best be careful using the term City of Lies to describe anything other than itself.
- 40Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonFamiliar execution and drab characters conspire to drain this vital story of its intensity.
- 30The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe 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.