Series Review: Peaky Blinders – Season 4 (2017)

As some of you might know, I have reviewed the previous three seasons of this shows before (nudge nudge, wink wink), and I honestly loved them all. So I was of course excited for the fourth season. So now that I’ve finally watched it I can give you my thoughts on it. So here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Peaky Blinders” season 4.

It’s christmastime, and everybody is trying to enjoy the holidays. But when Tommy (Cillian Murphy) receives a letter he realizes that his family will be in danger. So he has to bring the family together so they can defend themselves against their newest foe: A group of American gangsters led by the dangerous Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody). So now we have our Peaky plot. And it’s still great. The plot here is tense, dramatic, filled with twists and turns, and never failed in keeping me engaged. There’s an air of mistrust and unease after the end of season 3 across the entirety of this season, and it adds so much to the quality of it all. So yeah, this is a great plot.

I’m not gonna go too in-depth with the main/returning players here, since I’ve talked about them so much in my previous reviews. But I can say that they’re all damaged here, and they’re all a bit different since the end of the previous season, adding another compelling side to them. Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, Finn Cole, Sophie Rundle, Harry Kirton, Joe Cole, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Kate Phillips, Ned Dennehy… they’re all fantastic. Now for some of the newer people. As mentioned earlier, this season introduces Adrien Brody as Luca Changretta, an Italian-American gangster who’s coming for Tommy and the others. He’s a ruthless, cunning, and calculating villain. And Adrien Brody is inconsistent in the role. The writing itself is great, and there are moments where he can be quite menacing. But at a lot of points his delivery is almost like a caricature of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather”. It doesn’t take away too much from the show, but it is quite noticeable. Then we get Aidan Gillen as Aberama Gold, a Romani Gypsy that Tommy starts working with after the Italians make their entrance. He’s a clever and cool man who got a few tricks up his sleeve. And Gillen is really good in the role. And then of course we see the return of Tom Hardy as Alfie Solomons for a bit. And he’s as awesome as ever. There are more actors throughout the season, but if I get too in-depth I might accidentally spoil stuff and also be here all night. But let it be known that this is overall very well acted.

The music here is interesting as there are some tracks composed specifically for it by Martin Slattery and Antony Genn. And those tracks are great. But let’s face it, everybody is here for the licensed rock tracks used throughout. And if this is your first time hearing about this, let me quickly explain. “Peaky Blinders”, despite being a period drama, has rock music in it… and it fucking works. Anthing from Nick Cave to Johnny Cash to Arctic Monkeys to a fuckload of other ones… and it works surprisingly well. All the music here’s great and it all works well within the show.

The show was created by Steven Knight, and he wrote all the episodes this season. And all the episodes here were directed by David Caffrey, who I think did a damn good job. He captures that gritty yet stylish “Peaky” flair that has been in all the seasons so far. And the cinematography by Cathal Watters is fantastic. There’s also some action in this show, and it’s tense and exciting. And really violent. ’tis awesome.

This show/season has been well received (from the little data I can gather on my usual sites). On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 94% positive rating. On Metacritic it exists but has no real score. And on imdb.com it has a score of 8,8/10 and is ranked #57 on the “Top 250 TV” list.

Yeah, season 4 of “Peaky Blinders” was great. Had a slight nitpick, but nothing to break it for me. It has a great plot, great characters, great acting, great music, and great directing/cinematography. Like I said, I found Brody to be a bit inconsistent here, but it doesn’t ruin it for me. Just takes me a tiny bit out of it at some moments. Time for my final score. *Ahem*. My final score for “Peaky Blinders” season 4 is a 9,60/10. This means that it gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Peaky Blinders” season 4 is now completed.

PEAKY FOCKIN’ BLOINDEHS!

Movie Review: Sing Street (2016)

Music is one of the most important things in this world, at least I think it is. Without I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’d be like.

Ladies and gents… “Sing Street”.

Welcome to Dublin in the 1980s. We follow young Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) as he gets transferred to a new school in the wake of his family’s financial issues. Then one day he sees a mysterious (and beautiful) girl (Lucy Boynton) that he falls in love with. We then starts a band to try to impress her. And now we have a plot that honestly floored me. Because it’s not just a romantic comedy, but it’s a heartfelt coming of age story that managed to pull on my heartstrings quite a bit. It is a very relatable tale of family, love, friendship, and following your dreams. Sure, there are a lot of familiar elements that we’ve seen in a lot of movies, but the way they’re done in this movie is so great that it overcomes those elements. Yeah, it’s a great plot.

The characters in this movie are all very interesting and they also feel very real. Before this movie I had never even heard of Ferdia Walsh-Peelo at all, but I have to admit that he was great in the movie as Conor. He’s a very relatable character, even if I’ve never gone through all the shit he has. Jack Reynor plays his brother in this movie and he was terrific in his role. Aidan Gillen plays their dad and he was great. Lucy Boynton who played Conor’s love interest, she was great in the movie. The guys who played Conor’s friends, they were all really good. The guy that played the bully (yes, there’s a bully in this) he was really good. All of the actors in this movie did a great job with their performances.

The music in this movie… oh my god, the music in this movie! Since it’s basically a movie about music they of course had to nail it when it came to that aspect, otherwise this would have gone totally to shit. But they actually managed to do it! The original songs that they wrote and recorded for this are pretty fuckin’ great. Really catchy, really well written… it’s genuinely great. But they of course had a bunch of licensed tracks spread throughout, and not only were those tracks ones that I like… they actually fit the scenes in the movie very well. In other words, this movie has an amazing soundtrack.

The movie was directed by John Carney and I think he did a really good job. There’s nothing fancy or groundbreaking done with the camera, but the movie is visually appealing. The movie also has a good amount of humor in it, and I did think all of said humor was very funny.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 97% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 79/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 8,0/10.

“Sing Street” is a pretty damn great movie. It has a great plot, great characters, great performances, great music, great directing, and some really good humor. Time for my final score. *Clears throat*. My final score for “Sing Street” is a 9,89/10. So it of course gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Sing Street” is now completed.

Ah, Ireland…