I watched Peakey Blinders season 1 - here are my thoughts. -------
The positives: Cillian Murphy is one of the best actors living and I have nothing but praise for his performance. The supporting cast is also strong. In fact I have 0 qualms and it was A+ as far as casting and acting goes, not a single weak performance.
The show was visually beautiful as well; costume design, set design, cinematography all superb.
Now the negatives.
The character of Thomas Shelby was too “good” and they made too many unrealistic efforts to make him relatable to the audience, which is in contrast with the show’s ostensible desire to make Thomas a morally ambiguous, cold and damaged soul. But he’s not; he’s very much a good dude for all intents and purposes. When his people die in collateral exchanges it happens more out of poor planning/judgement than malicious intent, which makes his flaws easier to forgive. I just don’t like the prince charming, affable gangster vibe. He’s a fucking criminal who stashes razor blades in his cap to slice fools. He has to be more nasty. He has to be more Tony Soprano and less Robin Hood. Two moments in particular stand out as good examples of this:
1 He tricks the italians by not actually killing his pal. It felt cheap. I think having him kill the dude would have been 100% more interesting: Tom must reluctantly kill his friend to prevent a brutal gang war and also chooses to kill said friend to spare him from a more gruesome death by the Italians. Brutal, understandable, intriguing. With this act we see Thomas as a guy who loves his friend but nevertheless, as a leader of a crew, must make a really hard decision which he chooses to execute himself out of some sort of gangster honor code. Awesome. ——— But instead we get some unrealistic switch-a-roo that saps the situation of it’s gravitas in order to make Shelby seem more of a good guy and to let the audience breathe a bit easier with regards to their feelings about our protagonist.
2 he saves Grace from Billy Kimber. He knew what he was doing. In fact he knew the ENTIRE time while he was peppering her up for the horse race what was going to unfold. It just feels more in-character for a gangster of Thomas’ caliber and reputation to use people for his own gain. It would serve to bolster this “grey” characterization that the show seems to want to pursue and it would help remind the viewer that, despite his loyalty to his friends and family, his charm, his boyish good looks, and his commendations on the battle field, he’s still a murdering, bloodthirsty and ambitious gangster who was broken by the war.
It’s stuff like this that makes you appreciate Tony Soprano. We love Tony. We root for Tony. But we never forget that Tony is a mob boss and a fucking douche bag.
Other issues: the character that the Jurassic Park guy plays is WAY too easy to identify as a villain. At first his character showed promise: a ruthless police officer who wishes to rid the city of scummy criminals by being just as rough and vicious as they are. Okay sounds good lets do this, plenty to work with there. But then he has to be the creepy uncle guy, he has to be the aggressive whore abuser, he has to be an untrustworthy liar, he has to be the coward who didn’t fight in France during WW1. I don’t appreciate that; it’s cheap and it’s easy. There is plenty to make him a worthy antagonist but the writers really had to just keep tossing unlikeable qualities his way and the show suffered for it.
Also the romance between Grace and Thomas was too cookie cutter. Grace falling in love with him was just so predictable and forced. Their chemistry was OK at best and frankly they didn’t spend enough time together to warrant this love. In a way its a bit offensive — when does the secret operative woman NOT fall in love with her quarry? Can she just do her job and not get romantically entangled for once? That would be refreshing. And the fact that he didn’t try to kill her in the end is, again, too prince charming for me. He’s a fucking gangster. She was literally the cause for 2 or 3 of his worst moments in the show. An acrimonious separation would have been more fitting.
And finally, the music. I still haven’t put my finger as to why I dislike the choices they made. The main song was fine. But whenever some jangly indie rock jammer came on part of me cringed. I think it has something to do with the fact that the aesthetic of the show is so inextricably linked with the visual aesthetic of the performers of this kind of music that when they combine it feels like the show is pandering to a certain lifestyle/brand, like you could walk in to one of those ultra hip gentleman barber-shop-saloons on Valencia and see Peakey Blinders playing on the flatscreen as some train-conductor looking dude waxes your mustache on an antique mahogany chair hand-made by some youngish pipe-smoking carpenter. I think The Knick, which is another show in roughly the same time period, was far more successful in it's use of anachronistic music as they emphasized the MOOD of the songs over some vague aesthetic connection.
Anyways I give it a B. Good show, bolstered by strong acting, strong visuals, but it doesn’t stand in the same ranks as the top tier stuff.