Peaky Blinders, a Must See!

Peaky Blinders is, I would say, the English version of Boardwalk Empire with a smaller budget, harder to understand accents, and seriously in need of a map. However, it is still worth watching , particularly season 2, which is much stronger and benefits from a larger cast, a larger geography, and better story telling.

Peaky Blinders, created by Steven Knight, is a show set in 1919 Birmingham England that follows the gang and family known as the Peaky Blinders, This name was derived from the razor they keep within their hats which allows them to wield and cut people with ease. The show starts Cillian Murphy as the leader of Peaky Blinders, Thomas Shelby, who is equal parts cunning and cold. The show begins with the the gang becoming the focus of Inspector Chester Campbell (Sam Neill) as he attempts to locate automatic weapons that they gang stole. With his brothers Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) and John Shelby (Joe Cole), Thomas attempts to make the gang's power and income increase throughout England. Much to the chagrin of his aunt, Polly (Holly McCrory), Thomas often goes it alone, and is plans are kept secret from his family and the viewers until the very end when everything falls together quite nicely.

Season 2 is much improved from some of the random and awkward scenes that happen throughout season 1, unnecessary slow motion and childish cutting sounds when the Peaky Blinders use their acclaimed weapon, just a few of the many things that I had with the first season. The season also benefits from the presence of Tom Hardy who plays Alfie Solomons and easily aggravated Jewish gangster, who also would benefit from slowing his words down a bit. This show is marketed towards the United States which is why I think the show would benefit from including a map to illustrate the location of some of these cities, sorry I'm not up to snuff on my England geography, and many of the characters have such thick accents that a number of times I found myself rewinding to catch what they had said.

But, again, despite all of this, I am still interested within the show. Sam Neill is fantastic in his role and makes a great villain and Tom Hardy really brings it on screen. Cillian Murphy is good but I am hoping that he really shines in season 2. The best scenes involving cold calculating characters is when they lose it and I am hoping season 2 allows for this scene to happen, something that never really happened for Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire. Check the show out, it's on Netflix, only 6 episodes a season and every episode is nearly an hour. No reason not to!