As momma always said... when you tell the truth you can always repeat the same story without repercussions since you don't have to remember any of the lies you may have otherwise told. In Shades of Blue you have an entire team of a police division involved in corruption. The two lead characters on this corrupt police team are Harlee Santos (played by super star Jennifer Lopez) who is a single mom raising her 16 year old daughter. Her daughter Cristina Santos (played by Sarah Jeffery) who is a cellist prodigy will require a substantial financial contribution to enrol in a private school for music prodigies. This is the main reason that mom and police woman Harlee Santos is part of a corrupt team of police officers. The team leader is Detective Matt Wozniak, played superbly by the legendary crime genre star Ray Liotta. Who can forget Ray's memorable performances in crime films such as Goodfellas, Narc, Identity and/or Cop Land. Ray has always been one of my guaranteed good performance actors and he is perfect for the part of the corrupt team leader Matt Wozniak.
With only the first episode televised at the time of my review it is a tad premature to evaluate how the main characters roles will evolve, and if the television series writers will lean more in the direction of a television crime series like The Shield, or with more of a strategic crime series as the multiple Emmy winning series The Wire.
I will say though that acquiring an elite director for the pilot series such as the seasoned director and producer Barry Levinson has kick started this series on a high note. Director Levinson has ensured we understand that Harlee Santos is a very busy cop and mom. Within the first 60 minutes in no particular order, we witness Harlee single handedly run down and handcuff a very quick and agile street thug, she sets up an alibi for a rookie cop who kills a low life drug dealer without thinking first, she deliberately smashes her daughters car up to back up an earlier alibi she created (remember what momma said about lies versus telling the truth?) for Detective Matt Wozniak, gets caught by the FBI trying to take a bribe form a bookie (who is an FBI agent) and Harlee still finds time to work out in a boxing gym both in and out of the ring with her boy toy trainer boyfriend (no surprise here). Whewww, Harlee accomplished all that in less than 60 minutes.
So we have a team of corrupt cops trying to do their job of protecting the good citizens of New York City and at the same time make a few bucks off the backs of the bad guys by skimming a little kick back in protection money. We have the FBI closing in on this team of corrupt cops who are now under surveillance, and we have the corrupt team leader Matt Wozniak trying to figure out who the snitch is in his own unit before the FBI closes in on them all and breaks up this happy little family of corrupt cops.
There is a lot going on in Shades Of Blue and I remain optimistic that with this stellar cast of Grade 1 movie and television stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Ray Liotta, Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos), Warren Kole and Lolita Davidovich the series will have a strong first season performance. Mrs Shullivan and I were impressed with the pilot episode. So far I will give the series a positive 9 out of 10 rating for the stellar cast, great directing and rich cinematography for a television crime/drama series pilot.
