It’s been a long road to release for “City of Lies.” The feature started shooting in 2016, and fought waves of legal and financial entanglements before final making its way to a North American release. Somehow, the picture has become even more topical in the interim, with screenwriter Christian Contreras taking inspiration from Randall Sullivan’s book, “LAbyrinth,” using the investigation surrounding the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls to examine a the greater cancer of corruption spreading through the L.A.P.D. “City of Lies” has a lot on its mind, but it also has some degree of difficulty summoning gripping drama, doing much better as a rapid-fire detective story with multiple suspects and theories concerning an unsolved mystery. A few stretches of melodrama aren’t nearly as interesting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com