On March 9, 1997, the rap world lost one of its most iconic performers: Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. Biggie was gunned down only six months after fellow rapper Tupac Shakur was killed, and more than two decades later, Biggie's murder remain officially unsolved. But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been plenty of speculation and investigation into the parties responsible for the killing, and later this year, City of Lies will follow Detective Russell Poole, played by Johnny Depp, searching for the truth once again, pulling the curtain back on a wide-reaching conspiracy in Los Angeles. You can check out the trailer for this gripping tale below.
Based off the book LAbyrinth by Randall Sullivan, City of Lies sees Russell Poole revisiting the Biggie Smalls case, but this time he's working alongside journalist "Jack" Jackson, played by Forest Whitaker, whose is trying desperately to save his reputation and career. Depp's Poole notes at the beginning of the trailer that a murder that big only goes unsolved if the police don't want to to solve it. More than 20 years after Biggie's death, not one person has been arrested, but as Poole and Jackson work together, they'll start to learn more than ever before about why the rapper was murdered. While the theory has been floated that members of Biggie's entourage hired the shooters who killed Tupac Shakur, thus presenting a scenario where Biggie is later killed in retaliation, City of Lies delves into the possibility that members of the Los Angeles Police Department were responsible, or at the very least connected. But as Poole and Jackson move closer to the truth, they'll find themselves being targeted by individuals who prefer that this case remain a mystery.
While Johnny Depp's most prominent role this year is arguably reprising dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in Fanatic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, City of Lies will thrust him back into the crime genre, territory he last visited in 2015's Black Mass. As for Forest Whitaker, he popped up earlier this year in Black Panther and will be back for the bizarre comedy Sorry to Bother You (among other movies), but like Depp, City of Lies looks to be his most intense project of the year. City of Lies will arrive during the post-summer movie season, pre-arrival of winter blockbusters period, i.e. a great time to release a movie about a detective and a reporter attempting to solve a decades-old murder and subsequently unraveling a web of institutional corruption and lies. City of Lies' cast also includes Rockmond Dunbar, Neil Brown Jr, Xander Berkeley, Shea Whigham, Wynn Everett and Toby Huss.
City of Lies will be released in theaters on September 7. If you're interested in learning what else hits the silver screen later this year, look through our 2018 release schedule.
