Heavy with style but lacking in substance. That's the sum of Peaky Blinders.
Peaky leans hard on slow motion shots and a modern punk/indie rock soundtrack that you'll either love or hate. I actually like the choice of music but how many times do we need to see someone walk past a fire breathing factory with a cigarette in hand and punk rock blaring in the background before some actual character development happens?
Cillian Murphy is excellent but aside from one or two other characters the rest of them are very one dimensional. You see all the faces in the background pic on this page? Less than half of those faces have any real narrative in the show. Because of this you are left with just a couple of prominent figures that tend to be overused
The story-lines are never all that compelling either unfortunately, style wins out here as well.
I thought the first season was decent and I was curious to see if they would improve for the second. When it was announced that Tom Hardy would be joining the cast I was pretty excited. Sadly his role isn't featured that much so his impact was minimal.
I see people trying to compare Peaky Blinders with Boardwalk Empire and I just don't see it, Boardwalk had compelling story-lines and an ensemble cast it actually used. Here's hoping season 3 will be different.
