British serialised crime dramas are always welcome at my gaff, as long as they leave all knives and guns at the door and take off their size twelves. Peaky Blinders is back for a second series. The title refers, of course, to an early 20th century gang who hid razor-blades in their hats for nefarious purposes – but could just as well refer to the razor sharp cheekbones of Cillian ‘Crane’ Murphy.
That’s by the by, you’re not here to talk about cheekbones, you’re here to discover what the blurb has to say for itself:
Birmingham crime boss Thomas Shelby heads into perilous territory. As the 1920s begin to roar, business is booming for the Peaky Blinders gang. Shelby starts to expand his legal and illegal operations. He has his sights set firmly on wider horizons, and the race tracks of the South are calling out for new management.
Shelby’s meteoric rise brings him into contact with both the upper echelons of society and astonishing new adversaries from London’s criminal enterprises. All will test him to the core, though in very different ways.
Meanwhile, Shelby’s home turf of Birmingham is beset by new challenges as members of his family react to the upturn in their fortunes, and an enemy from his past returns to the city with plans for a revenge of biblical proportions.
Biblical proportions doesn’t sound good. Joining the cast is Tom Hardy. Quite a coup, considering Mr. Hardy is something of a movie heart-throb, these days. The advice he delivered in Inception – ‘dare to dream a little bigger, darling’ – is sage advice to any writer and was considered, briefly, as the title of this blog. The cast also includes Helen McCrory – we like her – and Noah ‘The Rach 3’ – Taylor.
Peaky Blinders was, is, written by Steven Knight, who wrote Locke, Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things and, lest we forget, created Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
If, everywhere you go, James Spader’s big milky gaze is following you from a billboard, it means The Blacklist is back on Sky Living this Friday at 9pm, for a second season. However, if you also get a curious sense that Spader’s talking to you about courgettes, then – no disrespect intended – it means you’re probably not well.
If you’re a fan of the first series – and there are plenty – you know the drill. Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington hands himself into the FBI and tells them he can deliver them the world’s most-wanted criminals – his only stipulation is that he’ll only talk with a rookie agent. I haven’t watched much of it, to be honest, but even I could glean that the agent’s husband is a rotter.
And, so then, let us please be upstanding for David Fincher’s adaptation of Gone Girl, which comes to a cinema screen near you on Friday. Gillian Flynn’s novel was quite the thing to be reading a couple of years ago, reaching that mythical zeitgeisty place that authors dream about – and, happily, managed to be also beautifully written. Mr. Fincher seems an ideal fit for her cynical and mesmerising story of a toxic marriage, and so far the reviews for the movie have been terrific.
incidentally, those of us who much admire Mz. Flynn’s two proceeding novels, Sharp Objects and Dark Places – I’m looking at you, madam, and you, sir – will be happy to know there are adaptations of those in the pipeline. Dark Places, like the adaptation of Gone Girl, has a screenplay written by the author herself, and Sharp Objects is set to be a TV series.
Be gone with you.
Crime Thriller Fella 