When I heard that there would be a Peaky Blinders movie, I wasn’t sure what to think. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with the show (it took me a long time to finish the entire series; I truly struggled to get through seasons 4-6), but, overall, I greatly enjoy the characters, the intricate plotlines, and the incredible acting (Cillian Murphy’s performance as Tommy Shelby is truly amazing), so I was worried about how a new installment might mangle the original story. I watched the movie on its release date — March 20 — and I have some thoughts… Spoilers ahead!
New Characters
The movie added a fair number of new characters, the most notable being Duke Shelby, played by Barry Keoghan, Kaulo Chirklo, played by Rebecca Ferguson, and John Beckett, played by Tim Roth. Probably owing to the movie format, which only provides viewers with two hours — instead of the six hours you get with a six-episode season — I didn’t feel like the characters were fleshed out enough, especially because they were sort of just thrust upon us in a somewhat odd fashion. Coming from the series, which delves deeply into the Shelby brothers’ PTSD from WWI, Polly Gray’s emotional trauma from losing her children, and Ada Shelby/Thorne’s struggle to assert her own identity in her powerful family, these new characters somewhat lacked depth and history.
Perhaps the most jarring introduction was the entire Duke-Zelda plotline, which I felt was a rather messy and awkward surgical addition to Tommy’s past. We learn that Duke is Tommy’s eldest son (aka, Zelda and Tommy’s relationship took place before he married Grace and had a son by her), and that he grew up with his mother, having little to no contact with his father. An obvious issue with this retroactive insertion is that, of course, neither Duke nor Zelda is ever mentioned in the TV series (and the movie portrays Tommy as having really loved Zelda). And, in my opinion, I don’t think that the deadbeat father archetype suits Tommy, especially given how much love and care he shows Charles and Ruby in the show. Additionally, I am a bit uncertain as to why he would just bequeath his gang to his son (why even need there be a gang at this point since he has money and status now?), since such a big part of the series’ later seasons emphasizes how the Shelbys themselves don’t need to be involved in such violence anymore (as the entire point of the gang was to earn the family wealth, power, and respect so that future generations wouldn’t have to brutally claw their way out of the mud). The return to the gang just feels like an erasure of the progress Tommy achieved for the family during the series…
I wish that we knew a bit more about Kaulo, too. I would have liked to have learned more about her story to understand her motivations more clearly… It also may have helped to build the Duke-Kaulo relationship a bit more in the movie, as they definitely appear close, but it’s not extremely clear what their history entailed.
As regards the main villain in this movie, John Beckett, I think that the movie could have done better. Tim Roth was a somewhat odd choice, given that I don’t feel like the writers really utilized his talents as much as they could have. I sense that they were, perhaps, trying to create another memorable, intelligent, yet eccentric, hard-to-read villain like the great Alfie Solomons (although, I would necessarily label him a “villain”), and I think that if they had created an interesting character for him like this, then he would have been a fantastic pick, as he gave great performances in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs that make me think he could match the aforementioned description.
Duke Shelby + Barry Keoghan
First of all, as I’ve already mentioned, I don’t love how the Duke Shelby character was retroactively created. His storyline simply doesn’t fit all that well with the show’s events. My second issue is that I feel like we’re simply restarting Tommy’s story with Duke, and I hate to say that Barry Keoghan’s performance just didn’t wow me like Cillian Murphy’s, which I can imagine is, in large part, due to the fact that Murphy really defined this character, and he did it so well. Another reason for this may simply be that Keoghan really didn’t have the canvas to show his talents, as Murphy had six whole seasons (with each episode lasting around one hour) while Keoghan only had two hours (the equivalent of two episodes), and the focus of the movie was really on Tommy, not Duke. However, I will say that the two actors are well-suited as a father and son duo.
Missing Characters
This movie is populated more by missing characters than by present characters. Watching this, you don’t so much feel the weight of the living characters but notice those who are dead or just plain excluded. Of course, the series saw the deaths of Grace Shelby, John Shelby, Polly Gray, and Ruby Shelby, but the biggest death we are presented with at the movie’s beginning is Arthur Shelby’s (more on this later). I was quite upset about Arthur being killed off, as he’s such a crucial figure in the show, and the movie felt a little less crazy and intriguing without him. However, since really the whole plot of the movie is Tommy’s struggle to find peace, it makes sense that he has to be the last brother (of the older three, anyway) standing.
What really annoys me, though, is that many of the characters from the show either aren’t seen, like Charles Shelby, or aren’t even mentioned, like Lizzy, Finn Shelby, and Isaiah, in the film. And it’s really the latter treatment that irks me. Why not, at the very least, add a stray line of explanation about what happened to Lizzy and Finn? When I heard that the movie was going to be about the “new generation” of Peaky Blinders, I initially thought that older versions of Finn and Isaiah would be running the show, but they weren’t even given a moment’s thought in the movie.
Arthur’s death
Okay… Arthur’s death. We jump from Arthur taking his own life to Tommy accidentally shooting Arthur because Arthur is hopped up on opium and displaying aggression to Tommy intentionally killing him because he’s “filled with booze and rage.” I could have accepted the second option in this series, but the third is a bit hard for me to swallow, especially when it’s dealt with rather quickly in the movie. I really feel like I need more information about why Tommy would kill him… I don’t really feel like the explanation, “I just wanted to be rid of him,” appropriately applies, and if we’re going to make it apply, I think that the creators needed to spend more time on this.
Movie Format
Steven Knight should really have stuck with the TV series format for Peaky Blinders… I feel like he just wrote two new episodes of the show (which I think would have worked better), stuck them together, and called the product a movie. To me, the movie seemed to lack a purpose, and so the action felt somewhat flimsy, tied together only by associations to storylines built by the show. When the movie was approaching the end, I just kind of thought to myself, is this really it? THIS is the plot of the movie? Huh… okay… kind of underwhelming.
Tommy’s Death
I knew that Tommy was going to die in this movie, but I wasn’t expecting the focus of the movie to be, in essence, Tommy’s wish to die and his journey to death. I think more emphasis should have been given to the actual plot of the movie, instead of spending so much time on Tommy’s misery, as the actual action and events of the film, as I’ve mentioned, didn’t make a great impact, but instead seemed to me like faded background furnishings.
The ‘Peaky Blinders’ Sequel
Apparently, the movie is not all for the Peaky Blinders world… There are going to be two new six-episode seasons, as Netflix Tudum shares, which will take place in a war-devastated Birmingham.
My attitude towards these new seasons is the same as the attitude I had towards this movie: ambivalent… I will say I am a bit tired of the seemingly endless stream of remakes. Why can’t we just let past movies and series lie instead of constantly adding on to them and, in the process, mangling them?