Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (ft. guests Steven Knight & Tom Harper)

35:37Yeah. And then talking of too much to bear, I mean, then his sister dies, Ada, who, beloved to fans, we've known Ada since right at the start, season one, episode one, she's there. I mean, her death being gunned down in the street. Tell me about that. Did you kind of play with different ways to kill her off? I mean, and how important is that to the story of getting Tommy back into this world? yeah we did i mean that was actually something that um there was always there in some form um and again it's like she it's how do you keep the audience on their toes and also be honest about the reality of this brutal world that we that we that we exist within um how to do it was a you know we i think we always just wanted it to be yeah if i think back to a lot of the other um perhaps the reality of the world and perhaps the um some of the other um tv shows or films that um that i've really admired in the past it tends to always come from nowhere you know think about omar's death for example oh my god yeah or something like that just something where where it just it's just it sort of comes from nowhere i mean there's a bit of anticipation for this but i think i hope that it's still as shocking as it should be do you ever get any feedback from either the producers or from netflix in this case where they go oh come on guys like the shelby's are dropping like flies can't we have some people survive uh no i don't think we've ever had that no no no i mean i have to say uh netflix have been really um i've been great partners for this they've they've they've sort of supported and given good notes but they've never dictated where the show should go what the tone the show should be i think that's you know credit to steve and to killian who have such a clear idea and have done for six seasons of what the show is and where it needs to go and it's clearly been very successful that i think they just trust them now this movie it's a crime movie it's a western it's a war movie but also at its heart it's very much a family drama and it's a father and son tale now there's not many people who could play tommy's son like killian murphy's son you found the one didn't you in barry keoghan so i mean was it always a case it has to be barry he's the only guy who's kind of exudes that charisma to do it yeah i mean i you know i always think you're there can never it's always like you have the you can always only see the person that it is for the time that it is but i do believe that you know there are different people that would play it differently yeah but i think that barry was was absolutely the first choice and i think that he is perfect for it and he um he just has such strength and vulnerability at the same time and there's very very few people few people that can do that and then to have the charisma to be able to stand up to an actor like killian then you get into like you know there's very very few people in the world that could do that I think and he does that so beautifully but he's also the other thing I really like about him and the casting in general is that he has a different energy to Tommy he's sort of the same he's got the same he has strength and power and charisma but he has a slightly more erratic feeling to him and Tommy is so still Killian is so still and he's so focused whereas there's an unpredictability to Barry which is amazing he has a spontaneity doesn't he and he's kind of dangerous and to me watching it i mean the only time i've ever seen anyone in the show go up against tommy where you feel this is such an even match was obviously uh tom hardy yeah because he has that as well so barry really brings that to the table similarities between barry and tom hardy you know obviously lots of differences as well but there are there are they share that slightly you never quite know what they're gonna do next no it could kick off so how much are you involved in the casting i mean because obviously killian's gonna have a say the producers are going to have a say i imagine netflix will have a say stephen knight will have a say i mean is it all of you there and going right barry's the man yeah i mean i think it's uh i mean it's definitely

39:57uh well i i think that the the truth is it's led by me but if you've got people as good and well connected as killian and steve inevitably they're going to have ideas and you know so Rebecca for example was Killian's idea I think there'd been some conversations between they share an agent and so I think that conversation would be going on so Killian had the idea about Rebecca and I was just like yeah she'd be fantastic so it was a very straightforward conversation but in reality it was just you know as I said before you know we're a real creative team and we're very much aligned and so if someone's got a good idea you run with it you know if someone's got a good content and i think that again like having an actor like killian who is so respected by by his peers um and a brand such as peaky blinders where people really know what it is it makes them casting becomes much more straight this is a very straightforward casting process we just went to people and they said yes yeah it's brilliant it doesn't really happen like that very often at all how tricky was it for you to maintain that balance between Duke and Tommy, where all through the film, you're not sure if Duke's working with Tommy or against him, if Duke is going to double-cross him and he's actually working with the Nazis.

41:16And you have to keep the audience on their toes the whole time. I mean, was that really difficult to walk that tightrope? Yeah, it was, actually. We tried pushing it one way and we tried pushing it the other way, and it was always a delicate balance. And, you know, again, one of the good things about Peaky Blinders and the fact that it is a bit unpredictable and you can, it's a world in which Ada can just get shot or, you know, people do die all the time. I think you, it's within the realm of plausibility that he would betray his father, that Duke would betray his father. and that's a very useful thing to live in to occupy that world rather than a i guess a more traditional hollywood movie where a father would never you know some would never betray his father because it's gonna end up in a happy ending this you don't anything could happen so that definitely helps um but we did find it hard um it also helps with barry as well because i think barry has played a lot of um characters who would do extreme things yeah so you're not quite sure and also he just has that again as we spoke about that unpredictability so that helps as well but like i'm interested i don't know if we've got that balance right yet to be honest i think we'll find out in the next few days but um i i hope so we worked quite hard of it hard at it but it's quite hard to tell and also like it's it's a reasonably complicated plot line and where you i think we've i think we've got it right we have you know we've shown it to lots of people and got their feedback and is at what point Do you realise that actually Duke is working with Tommy Robb against him?

42:55It's an interesting point. I think I know at the moment. Yeah. Do you know? When was it for you? It was quite late on, actually. Yeah. It was pretty much not until they get to Warehouse 47 in Liverpool to blow up the money. Yeah. Even at that point, sort of leading up to the warehouse scenes, I was like, I'm not quite sure. Yeah. Where is it for you? Where is it for you? it's intended to be around the point where beckett is talking to the um to the the the nazi guards on the right in the warehouse and translating for duke and what duke's saying and he's being translated is opposite to what we're seeing so he's saying they're all going to be in the barges and they're going to be going yes and if you shoot them then that you'll be able to and then you see them all jumping off the barges at the same time so that's where it's meant to be but like i think some people will get it there some people will get it later some people might get it beforehand um i'll always guess it later i'm very slow at these things so there you go also like it is it's really tricky because you know you if you're making the film and you've been working on the script for two years you know you know it's so well and you know every piece of detail like i just think is you have to accept that firstly audiences are very smart but there's a lot going on and so like you you can't assume that people will take everything first time you You know, they'll take most things and they will make astute assumptions.

44:15But you might just miss a piece of dialogue or someone might be coming in and offering you a cup of tea. You know, not even that. You might, whatever it may be. You know, you just, you're not quite sure what the important things are. Whereas if you've been working intensely, you have all that information. Yeah. Yeah. So like you said, it turns out Duke is working with his father against the Nazis. But he then, of course, has to kill Tommy and he has to shoot him. That's the way he does it. and it's almost like his fate i mean that again it's such a huge moment was that always going to be the case that tommy shelby was going to die and his son was going to kill him no oh okay again i mean it was for has been for most of the development process i think as soon as steve landed that obviously came from steve as soon as steve i mean actually in the first draft of the script i read tommy didn't die wow but i think we all realized that that needed to happen um and then you know slightly after that um steve came up with the idea that it should be juke and as soon as that landed i think we all knew that that that was what had to happen um but i think that's what the development process is like you don't you know the reality is that you have to work hard and the script develops with each iteration and improves and changes and yeah it's a real it's a process you know but yes that felt like as soon as that landed it remained the same and as you say it felt like fate yeah it's interesting because I just presumed that it would have been in there from the start and Killian would have said yeah I'll come back and play Tommy one last time and that was the kind of condition it just felt like that but no yeah no and you know killian was always as he said in many interviews you know i'll come back if the script's right and i think that was probably part of getting the script right tommy's funeral tell us about the way you shot that and you know the kind of roman-y send-off yeah well obviously um part of the tradition of the peakies and the romley culture is burning the caravan with with the body and the and the photos and the possessions to go on to the next world.

46:34And we were planning on shooting this actually in the grounds of Cork Abbey, which is where we shot the interior of Tommy's house. And it's very lovely countryside, but it's very bucolic and beautiful. And like a day or two before we were due to shoot the scene, I just was standing there one morning before we started work. I was like, I just don't think this is right. this is not the right place for it so i said producer guy healy i said god i don't think it's right i think it's got the wrong tone it doesn't feel epic or vast or bleak enough you know yeah uh and he and he uh made a pained face expression and um he said i think you're right and so then we we shifted the schedule around and we searched moors and we found a place it's actually quite tough because a lot of the moorland is like a an ssi site of special scientific interest and you can't have fires there so we we couldn't burn the caravan on the top of one place and so we all went up a mountain we shot a part of it somewhere else and then we could burn the caravan somewhere else so it was actually shot in three different locations but but in essence it felt like it needed that big epic vista um in order to send him off in style and that felt like the right thing and also we i really wanted to do it for real like there's something elemental about you know the burning um and the smoke and the fog and the wind and the myth do you know i mean like it just felt like we had to go for it and do it for real that felt like the only way to to to end that that this chapter in the life of tommy shelby and steven assures us this really is the end of tommy there's not going to be another film a prequel anything like that so steve says a lot of things does he leave the door open slightly one thing i would definitely say is Tommy Shelby is definitely dead.

48:24Right, okay. Tom, it's been wonderful to have you as part of the Peaky family and on the podcast today, so thank you. Thank you very much.

48:31Chris Hewitt:Okay, that was Tom Harper, director of Peaky Blinders. I don't believe he directed the first episode of Peaky Blinders, but he was there in the first series. Otto Bathurst.

48:41Alex Godfrey:Yes, he directed it. Bathurst or Bathurst? I think it's Bathurst. I don't know, actually. It's one or the other.

48:45Chris Hewitt:Should we shine a Bathurst signal in the sky and see if he shows up?

48:48Alex Godfrey:Yeah, let's find out. gave Peaky some of its... Visual language. Well, specifically the audio language. So a lot of the... Crunching punk tunes and whatnot. The incongruous... Anachronistic. Yes, the anachronistic audio. Very much so. He gave it that kind of rock and roll feel, that kind of Richie-esque vibe. Which I know intimately, Jimbo, as you know. As someone who has seen every episode of Peaky Blindness.

49:14Chris Hewitt:All right, so I think we're actually... we represent a kind of nice holy trinity of approaches to picky blinders here because James and Alex have seen the show they know the show, Alex perhaps less well than James In theory, I've watched the whole show through

49:30Alex Godfrey:twice, but equally because I watch Chex Notes, 157

49:34Chris Hewitt:new shows a week, my hard drive is full, as I've said before. You want to bring that down to 155 and give yourself a bit more bandwidth but you have seen the show, you know the show Alex as well, I have never seen a single minute of Peaky Blinders. So I feel like I am perfectly placed to host this podcast. But we all kind of have different approaches on the movie as well, different takes on the film. And I quite liked it. I wasn't encumbered by any of the baggage of the TV show. So I just took it on his own terms, on his own merits, as a movie, as a piece of big screen entertainment because I saw it on the big screen.

50:08Chris Hewitt:And I had a decent time with it. I enjoyed it. Alex and James, I don't think you're quite there with me, right? Well, just sorry, I'm really interested to know. It's really interesting to watch a film spin-off of a show that you've seen nothing of. Did it make you want to see what had come before? No.

50:30Alex Godfrey:But to be fair, I think that says less about the film than it does Chris's approach to television. I don't know. I think if you've got something, there's lots more where that came from. so yeah but it takes quite a lot for you to invest in a big old sprawling multi-season TV show yeah it's a lot unless you're Law & Order and you're Jack McCoy and Lenny Briscoe I'm not interested but so many poor choices so many great choices

50:53Chris Hewitt:I'm missing Law & Order right now it's on Vive USA it's on streaming

50:58Alex Godfrey:it's on 24-7 I have no idea I've got a series record on so I am good talk about taking out hard drive space

51:05Chris Hewitt:but no it's a conscious choice conscious choice over the years to not watch Peaky Blinders. It never really felt like something that was kind of up my street, even though it feels like on paper, it's exactly up my street. I mean, it is,

51:18Alex Godfrey:because it's incredibly cinematic, and it's really sort of larger than life with huge characters, and it's a really, really great show. There's nothing else quite like it. I mean, the Ritchie thing is real. I think it has that kind of almost music video approach to this, because it's period drama writ large, because, I mean, Stephen Knight's talked about this endlessly, not least for To Me, 4R Magazine, but about how he grew up around Small Heath. And, you know, the stories of these kind of people, these gangsters, were, to his, you know, young ears, they were rock stars and they were larger than life, which is why the horse is massive.

51:52Alex Godfrey:Everything's huge. Like, it doesn't... And it's rock music in it. Yeah, and it's rock music. It's a hyper-realized imagining. It is essentially the story of the Peaky Blinders through the fantasy and imagination of a small child. And that's the filter of this show, only with more swearing. Okay, maybe I'm on board.

52:08Chris Hewitt:Who knows? I know it just also you'd look great in a flat cap so you should I don't know that I would look great in a flat cap with the razors in the beak yeah good good good but yeah it was just it was one of those things that when it started it just felt like to me because I was aware of it I wasn't like I was completely ignorant of picky blinders and so when I saw all the hullabaloo about it the new Sam Neill was in it with a Northern Irish accent which for a man who was born in Northern Ireland was because I've seen little clips here and there

52:36Alex Godfrey:I have not seen anything you'd have to try not to because it's a saturated popular culture.

52:40Chris Hewitt:So everything I saw just looked a bit murky and a bit dark for me, and I wasn't really that interested visually. So it's interesting what you're saying. It does have a great visual. It is more misty.

52:51Alex Godfrey:It uses very autumnal and sort of grey palettes. Lots of blues and grays. To be fair, it is Birmingham. But it's just a lot of smoke, mist. You know, it's very much... I can say that as a Brummie boy.

53:02Chris Hewitt:Yeah, adopted Brummie. Adopted Brummie, lived in Birmingham, went to university in Birmingham.

53:06Alex Godfrey:My dad is Brummie, so I can say that and it's fine.

53:09Chris Hewitt:That's nice, isn't it? Alex, do you have any affinity to the city of Birmingham, the great city of Birmingham? I've been there for three hours. Oh, well.

53:18Alex Godfrey:You're practically a native. No, I went there once to look at the university. I haven't rejected it. I went back. I really liked it, actually. It looked really cool.

53:28Chris Hewitt:Lots to do. That wasn't my fate. Lots to do. Isn't there a bull called Ozzy in the train station? Anyway, we're getting off a beaten track. we're not on first name terms no true but you know going into this I didn't really know what had happened at all because I as you know sometimes I will read Wikipedia entries or I'll read recaps for shows I haven't watched but just so I can kind of keep up with stuff and I didn't really do that with Peaky Blinders I knew that Tom Hardy was in at one point and he wasn't I presume he got killed he's very good in it is he? okay and you tell her joy was in it at one point no she isn't I presume she got killed it's always been big stars coming Adrian Brody.

54:05Alex Godfrey:Adrian Brody? Sam Claflin was one of them. The Italian hitman. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, maybe I should. Sam Claflin as Oswald Mosley. Yes. Really? Yes. There's always been a political threat in it, more or less. Wow. I mean, Sam Neill started off the stunt, not stunt casting, but he was like the big Hollywood star who was in the first season.

54:26Chris Hewitt:It's fascinating. So I knew very little about this. I thought that Arthur, for example, had died off screen or maybe he had died at the end of series six, but that is not the case. He actually died off-screening this. So, yeah. So going into it, I had no connections to any of the characters and so I let it just wash over me as a movie and I thought it was a pretty well put together action movie, albeit with one where the main character moves around a mansion for the first 45 minutes. It is interesting to ponder though how emotionally invested we might have been compared to Chris who had not been along for the ride, who had not followed, you know, Tommy Shelby's journey in it before.

55:07I think the film does, you know, they always say the same things when they're promoting these films. It's like, you don't have to be a fan. It helps, and if you are a fan, you're going to love it. And if you're not, it doesn't matter. Come along anyway. I do think this film does throw in a lot of backstory. It tells you just enough about who these people are and what their relationships were and what happened to them. but the film should stand on its own two feet regardless which it kind of does because they're saying this is a film we're putting it in the cinemas and we want people to come and see it so it's got a challenge on its hands there but I've seen enough of the show I watched it at the beginning I watched some of it over the years I watched the entire final season I just sort of drifted in and out of it but I never actually felt that emotionally attached to it or anyone in it anyway that when it came to watching the film I just saw it as alright there's more Peaky Blinders I wasn't dying to know what happened and I don't know it's hard for me to tell Chris if I would have been any more emotionally invested than you were but I guess my point is that shouldn't matter anyway because the film I think the film worked enough on its own terms that I got infested

56:14Chris Hewitt:and also you have the iconography of yes I don't know Tommy Shelby as a character but I get his backstory and I get the weight of his backstory and also it's Cillian Murphy and naturally as audience members we infest ourselves in people we like. We like Cillian Murphy, so therefore I was on Tommy Shelby's side from the off. And I did feel an emotional punch when he shuffled off the mortal coil at the end. Although I'm guessing not as big an emotional punch as someone who's watched the show from the beginning. But I don't know. That's what I'm saying. I actually didn't care.

56:49Alex Godfrey:I cared. I was irritated. Not that he died. Because of the way they did it. Because of the way they did it. Because it was so utterly pointless and unnecessary. And yes, he does at that point have a quite pronounced death wish so you could say that he's deliberately putting himself in the line of fire but he could 100 % have dealt with that situation without getting killed so but as you say that is kind of what he wanted at that point because he wants peace and that's the only peace he's going to get well he made quite a spectacle of himself doing so I must say yeah I mean if you're going to go out go out in style is that what we can do it's how I want to go out yes did you did you suspect

57:23Chris Hewitt:he was going to go out

57:24Alex Godfrey:in this I did because the thing is he comes close to it in the final season of the show but he's dying of it's not actually cancer it's oh god I can't remember the actual medical term for it but he's got there's an illness essentially that he has and he thinks he's going to die and he burns all of his earthly possessions and waits to die and then finds out that he's been horribly horribly gaslit by the doctor who's actually a fascist sympathiser and he's like you motherfucker I'm not dying at all and then he goes to kill the doctor has a change of heart burns all his shit and then walks away. And he mopes out a big old mope for about 10, 15 years.

58:00Chris Hewitt:But he's done a lot of moping.

58:03Alex Godfrey:There's a significant amount of moping in the final seasons of Peaky Blinders. He's a serial moper. Which is why it's so odd to have so much of it in this film. Because I feel like we've been here and done this.

58:11Chris Hewitt:So that felt a little bit unnecessary. It felt slightly redundant to me because you know that he's going to come back and start kicking ass. And it's like, do we really need to spin the wheels as much as it does? It was so retracted. It was so retracted. And even though it was the most, you know exactly what's going to happen. You know he's going to come back. You know he's going to get back into the fucking hat and kill a bunch of people and save the day. You know it's going to happen. And although it wasn't uninteresting, I guess that they would say it's a character study of trauma and depression as most of the show has been.

58:43It was, I think, a good 45 minutes of just him in that house going, I'm not coming back, I'm not coming back.

58:48Chris Hewitt:I can put it on Netflix right now and time it. I think it really actually was about 45 minutes. And I was sitting there thinking, just get on with it we know what's happening we know what you're doing go back to Birmingham Birmingham Birmingham so where is the house how far away from Birmingham is he

59:05Alex Godfrey:I'm not sure actually I realise we still need to talk about the end

59:08Chris Hewitt:but yes

59:08Alex Godfrey:I genuinely don't remember where the house is okay it's a good horse and cart ride yeah it's a way away from Birmingham

59:17Chris Hewitt:alright okay so Alex hello did you expect him to car get the immortal man to be the mortal man by the end I mean it's more I think how much value did it have that he did I feel like I was when that happened and when it was leading up to it I didn't stop talking about it for the whole film he just wants to die but he helps out some people along the way I feel it was more of a Killian and Stephen we've got to kill Tommy Shelby this is the end we're ending the story this is the big cinematic climax of it we need a resolution we need him to die it was always going to head this way I felt like I was you know famously Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo killed off yes in his own Jedi and I did not felt like this is where this was always going and you knew it was going to happen and I don't know it just there was there was barely anything that surprised me in this film and I just I mean can we talk about the ending yeah are we yeah that's what we're doing it's a spoiler special that's why I asked you about it yes all right thank you for the permission um do you want to find a friend you want to ask the audience i just wish look i know it's not a subtle show but it was interesting james when i was on the podcast reviewing it uh a few weeks ago and you hadn't seen it yeah and i was saying i know the show does this that and the other but this takes a piss and it's so bombastic and it's so shallow and it's so it's so gets lost in its own mythology and you're going nah the show does that show does that show does that yeah but i i just it's not that i was expected some that i expected any subtlety from this film but i found it so overblown and so histrionic i couldn't get emotionally attached to it because it was so needlessly operatic stemming right from that title why call it what from the fucking immortal man what's there is a bit because obviously a lot

1:01:11Alex Godfrey:of it ties back to his memoir isn't it he's writing there's a bit where he's on a canal with a typewriter batching up pages. And I was just like, what is happening? We didn't need that. Why are you typing on a canal boat? I know.

1:01:26Chris Hewitt:Oh, God. It'd be like editing a podcast on a treadmill. Extraordinary, yes. He should have been typing as he was being shot.

1:01:33Alex Godfrey:And then I died. Hang on, hang on. Full stop, full stop. Oh, shit.

1:01:36Chris Hewitt:Not yet. Just mid-sentence.

1:01:38Alex Godfrey:Not yet.

1:01:38Chris Hewitt:My God. And then I was the immortal man. Yeah.

1:01:42Alex Godfrey:But the thing... I guess I wasn't so immortal after all. The thing with this that kind of throws me slightly is it feels like a legacy sequel that's coming back a decade after, but it's not. It's not actually that long since the series ended. And it feels like, to me, and I've said this before, I think I've talked about it on pilot, where I think this should have been a full season of the show. And I feel like it feels like the kind of thing that you would wait 10 years and then do this as a final season of the show. And I think that would have worked much better for me. But also imagine how more interesting it could have been and how much deeper they could have gone with the plot and the story of this film, which is an interesting scenario.

1:02:24You know, with Tim Roth, you know, the Brit working for the Nazis and the counterfeit money, let's flood the market, thus winning the war. Tommy Shelby wins the war for... It's so ridiculous. The Allies. I mean, you know, someone's been watching some Tarantino. But if this was, if they'd done, was it six seasons of the show? Six seasons. Right, if this had been season seven and they'd stretched it out and gone deeper into the characters and deeper into the genuine political nuance of it that it could have had, I just think it would have been better. This was done, there was so much whiz-bang, slap-bang, goodies, baddies, moustache twirling.

1:02:58That's maybe why I liked it, because it doesn't have nuance.

1:03:01Alex Godfrey:Well, it's welcoming. I think they deliberately, I don't want to say dumb, I think I do want to say dumbed it down. They dumbed it down a little bit so that people such as yourself would enjoy it to make it accessible, but actually I think they do it a disservice. I actually think, you know, go in heavy, go in hard, do it properly, and, you know, give long-time viewers what they need. And if you don't do it as a film, you don't need to make it accessible, because no one's watching fucking season seven if they've not seen one to six. But also, like, so was it Oswald Mosley? Was that their last season, right?

1:03:29That was Sam Clatham playing Oswald Mosley. Right, right, right. But it was done really well, even though, you know, it was taking liberties with history. It was actually, the way they did it, if you went along with it, it was quite convincing and almost kind of grounded. because it took its time with it and explored it with depth. This film doesn't do that at all. It's just like Tim Roth's a bastard and they'll kill everyone. He doesn't give a shit and we've got to kill him.

1:03:53Chris Hewitt:It's a boy's own rip-roaring World War II adventure. And again, I knew nothing about this movie going into it. I didn't know it took place in World War II. I didn't know that Tim Roth played a Nazi or a Nazi agent or a Nazi sympathizer, I guess. And the movie kind of had me from the off. you have this big bombastic opening where the budget level, I'm guessing, is clearly bigger than the TV show. And they have this great big German train yard full of trains being loaded with counterfeit money. And there's driving guitars and a soundtrack. I was like, well, this is cool. This is very cool. And then Tim Roth nonchalantly gets onto a train and leans back and says, the opening line of the movie, which is Heil fucking Hitler.

1:04:35Chris Hewitt:And I was just like, well, that's a statement of intent. It's a good opening. You had my curiosity. Now you've got my attention. and then I was really looking forward to like a proper Tommy Shelby versus the Nazis kind of movie. I got it to an extent but I've just literally timed it while you guys were talking. It is 45 minutes before he leaves his house. And I didn't need 45 minutes of him moping around his mansion. Him making quiche in the kitchen with Johnny Dogs. Yes. Yeah, considering this was like what, a two hour or less film. Yeah. why spend

1:05:11Alex Godfrey:almost half of it on that? But if this is a season of the show by all means spend the first episode doing that that is fine No don't do that because then people would complain about it on Pilot TV they go

1:05:22Chris Hewitt:why is he spending the first episode of this moping around his mansion he should get out there doing shit

1:05:27Alex Godfrey:But this goes back to what I'm saying if this had been a legacy sequel if there had been a period of time it would have been enough to spend time in the company of Tommy Shelby once more Quite possibly and to rediscover that character and see how he's aged and see how things have moved on because things have changed. Maybe he could have marinated a little bit more in the death of Arthur. That would have been an interesting wrinkle because as you say, he dies off screen and we expect him to be there and he isn't. But a lot of things, I felt also here, like the death of Ada, I thought was misserving that character.

1:05:53Alex Godfrey:Because she's always been the moral centre of that family and I felt like she was disposed of. She was used as a plot device. Right. And I felt that was, unfortunately, there was an element of fridging to that whole situation which I could have done without.

1:06:04Chris Hewitt:So let me, okay, let me dig into Ada. I still want to talk a little bit about the ending because I didn't think as a viewer, first time viewer, that it was as inevitable as you guys seem to think it was. I still went into the last 20 minutes of the movie thinking there are numerous ways this could resolve itself. You know, you could have Tommy living and there was even like a supernatural bent to this movie that I was not expecting at all. That's fairly consistent. So I'm told. Which was really interesting. Okay, is the immortal man title going to be made literal? Is he somehow going to survive being killed there can be only one I was genuinely half expecting him to be resurrected in some way and obviously at the end they give him the the Romani funeral and they burn him and I was like okay he's not coming back from that but unless he forced ghosts himself I'm not sure maybe he'll show up in the new TV show but I still thought the ending you know he could have walked away he could have prevailed Duke could have turned out we haven't even talked about Duke we will Duke could have turned out to be a real wrong-in and it could have been father having to put down the son and Tommy could have walked away from that.

1:07:09Chris Hewitt:I didn't feel it was as inevitable, his demise, as you guys seem to think. But, unless you want to come in on that, I wanted to talk about Ada, but I can hear you, the intake of breath. No, I only thought his demise was inevitable because of the way the film was going, because it was so clearly signposted and that's what they were doing. But I thought he was clever because he knew that there were conspiracies upon conspiracies to get him into this place and I didn't think he would be so willingly a participant in that. I didn't necessarily buy it by the end of this film. and I was like, would he really do that?

1:07:38I mean, he's just found his son,

1:07:41Alex Godfrey:who he's got quite a good relationship with. Well, he hasn't found him. He knew where he was the whole time. Yeah, but he didn't have a relationship with him. They kind of did, though, because he kind of brings him into the family at the end of the final season. But not played by Barry Keoghan, right? Not played by Barry Keoghan. Played by a different actor, or did we just not see him? No, we just see him, a different actor.

1:07:57Chris Hewitt:Oh, okay.

1:07:58Alex Godfrey:And he's young, and he's left the Peaky Blinders to him. He doesn't seem to have an awful lot of affection for Duke. and he's consciously walked away from that whole situation. So I don't think he's found you. I mean, certainly he's forged some kind of relationship with him. But I would say he's now got something to live for and I guess the point of his character... Yeah. The point of his character for most of the film is I have nothing to live for. Everyone I've come into contact with is dead and mostly because of me. But yeah, it is that. He carries this enormous weight of guilt for his past, for his actions, but more than anything else, he's just absolutely fried with PTSD from the First World War, as we see during the kind of whole tunnel rat reenactment sequence here.

1:08:38Alex Godfrey:But also the fact that, you know, and there's reference to kind of gypsy magic quite a lot in Peaky Blinders, but the idea that he's seeing the ghosts of his daughter, his brother, things like that, it feels like his demons have become palpable and real. Yeah. And he can't live with it anymore. Like he can't shut them up. he can't shut them out and it's like when Rebecca Focusson promises him peace and she's quite open about the fact that there's only one peace that's going to set you free and it is the peace of the grave she kind of even though she's sort of telling the truth the whole time yeah yeah but you know that character and I think I mean we get to the point he kind of knew like she's like oh yes I'm actually what I mean is I'm going to kill him he knows like he knows what she's offering he's one step ahead and that's what he wants ultimately he doesn't want to live so but again also that's fairly consistent because he's had that kind of mindset for quite some time.

1:09:32I think my problem with that part of the storyline and Rebecca Ferguson character and everything that happens in the entire film is that it's so on the nose. Everything in it is on the nose. I just wish it had been a bit richer.

1:09:44Alex Godfrey:Yes, but I feel like they just didn't have the time or really the will it felt to explore all this stuff because it did feel very surface level. That character wasn't really developed. That storyline wasn't particularly developed. and this whole film for me just feels skin deep but there's no layering to it whatsoever. It feels to me like it had drunk its own Kool-Aid and it was a victim of its own phenomenon. Because people think of Peaky Blinders as being, oh yeah, it's all flash and sizzle and spectacle and stuff but it's not. It is all that but it's loads of substance as well whereas this film is almost like the person who doesn't like Peaky Blinders idea of what Peaky Blinders is.

1:10:23Yes, and I feel like that's who they made it for. Hi Chris.

1:10:27Chris Hewitt:I liked it that was pretty good actually Conrad Cahn played Duke in the TV show he's the Duke he's the Duke A number one A number one you got the Duke you got the Duke yes alright Ada we've got several characters to talk about Ada Duke Tim Roth loves a bit brough and of course Arthur R.I.P. Arthur but Ada yeah you thought that that was a basically she was rendered as a plot device in this.

1:10:58Alex Godfrey:Yeah.

1:10:59Chris Hewitt:She deserved better.

1:11:00Alex Godfrey:She did deserve better, I thought. I thought that was, I thought it was a bad way for her to go out. And I thought it was, I get that at the end he has nothing and no one left. Like all of his brothers are dead, his sister is dead, you know, aren't Poles dead? Like everyone he loves is essentially dead. I'm not counting Duke. And here's another one. The Irish fella's still alive,

1:11:18Chris Hewitt:isn't he? What's his name? Johnny Dogs.

1:11:20Alex Godfrey:Johnny Dogs, yeah. It felt to me like we know, like you just said, it was 45 minutes till he comes home. And you know, you can see it building to this. There's got to be something seismic that brings it home. And as soon as she starts doing what she's doing, like, okay, they're going to kill her because he's going to come home for her. I mean, he comes home before she actually dies.

1:11:38Chris Hewitt:He's on his way home, and then he has this kind of psychic moment where he senses her death. I feel the greatest ovens in the force. And then gets out of the car and stands in the rain. Yes. Because that's what you do.

1:11:52Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Yeah. Did you think that Duke... Because Duke's interesting. Did you think that Duke was going to actually go through with it and kill her and become the film's big bad? Because I think that was an interesting avenue that the film could have gone down and didn't. It pulls its punches for Duke, I think. Again, predictability. I like that for the first half of the film, he was toing and froing. He didn't seem to know himself what his allegiances were. I thought he was an interesting character. I thought Barry Keoghan gave it. I love Barry. I think, you know, and he's so perfectly cast, one might say typecast,

1:12:27Alex Godfrey:in these sort of roles where he's a horrible toe rag. But he's so good at it. And I loved watching him do what he had, which, with what I thought was limited material in this film. But, suddenly, when he turned from the dark side to the good side, as it were, which is basically what happens in this film, again, you just, you know he's not going to do what Tim Roth wants him to do. You know he's going to go back to his dad by that point. It's like, oh, give me something. It feels like that. It was a really ballsy character and like, you know, a real Molotov cocktail to throw into Tommy Shelby's world.

1:12:59And then he just felt castrated to me. He became not very interesting as soon as he's like, oh, I'm a nice guy after all.

1:13:06Alex Godfrey:There was a fundamental, I thought, lack of subtlety to his extraordinary daddy issues in the film. And it's just like, this could have been, there could have been a lighter time. Well, he does have an extraordinary daddy. Indeed. Well, I think for me, it was like considering, he's really great in the first, 30-40 minutes of this film being kind of unremorseful doesn't give a shit, no morality, doesn't care who dies, doesn't care what he's doing, he wants his money he wants his power, and he's very good at that, and to suddenly take that all away from him and just see him as a good egg at the end of the day, it's like, well where's that guy gone?

1:13:36You know, that doesn't just go away

1:13:39Chris Hewitt:Yeah, there's a menace to him, I think, an unpredictability to anything Barry Keoghan does, which is why I'm fascinated to see his ringtone

1:13:48Alex Godfrey:But to that point, he's a poor man's Arthur. Like, Arthur was the absolute live wire, completely unpredictable, really ruthless and brutal. And they make a point of saying, well, he's worse than you or Arthur ever were. So is he? Arthur was an absolute lunatic. But Arthur, again, you had this, he vacillated from kind of soft and sad and a bit depressed to homicidal, furious, like cutting someone's face open with razor blades. and actually I felt that Barry was less impressive than Paul Anson was as Arthur yeah it was more of a just because I think it was the way it was written oh yeah this isn't weirdly this isn't actually meant as a Barry critique it is he didn't have anything to work with

1:14:31Chris Hewitt:exactly I wanted him to retain that edge all the way through and I wanted him to be a little bit more unpredictability to the resolution give us more to mistrust yeah exactly that's what I mean as soon as he turned into a good guy there was nothing left to wonder about. Of course, he is the one who dispatches Tommy in the end. What do we make of that? Beckett shoots Tommy twice and Tommy doesn't want to go out at the hands of a Nazi. So he'd rather go out at the hands of his own son. Did you like that scene? With his name inscribed on it. I mean, talk about getting lost in its own mythology. I mean, I think that's Stephen Knight enjoying his own poetry.

1:15:11Alex Godfrey:Well, yeah, because that's, again, it's a gypsy thing. That's been used before. That's part of the mythology of the show. Yeah. I mean, look, it's quite cute as a bit of, as an idea. And yes, I mean, I don't know how unconvincing it's a mercy killing, is it? Isn't it? It's, you know, it's like everyone wins, kind of, and everyone loses at the same time.

1:15:33Chris Hewitt:Profound. That's why I'm here. Accuses Stephen Knight of loving his own poetry and then he comes out with that. Thank you. Hey, can we clip that? Put it on the socials. My God, we've had a 4 ,000 % increase in subscriptions to this point of specials. This is amazing. You're welcome. Yachts all around, everybody. You mentioned Arthur. And I knew very little about that character. Obviously, I knew he was played by Paul Anderson. Not that one, or indeed that other one. what did you think of the decision by Knight and it's interesting because obviously Harper is the director of this and brings a great visual panache to the movie but this is Stephen Knight's thing so what did you make of the decision by Knight to not, well to A, to kill him off screen to not recast him so we have scenes where we get to see Tommy literally kill Arthur but we never see Arthur's face which for a first timer I felt was strange.

1:16:41Chris Hewitt:I didn't really understand why that was the case. Necessary though. Yeah. Was it necessary or could it recast?

1:16:47Alex Godfrey:you know, out of necessity was also killed off screen. So I feel like when Helen McCrory died. Yeah. But I feel like if you'd done it again, oh, by the way, Arthur's dead and just like disposed of it in that way, I don't think you could do that. Like, I think there had to be more to it. So I think they tried to find a way to work it organically into the story and have it that this was the demon that was haunting Tommy more than anything else he'd killed his brother so I get why they did it

1:17:11Chris Hewitt:was it successful? does it make sense to you as fans of the show is that something that Tommy would have done was Arthur a loose cannon to the point that he might have needed to be it was a liability

1:17:20Alex Godfrey:at the best of times it seems like an inevitable match of circumstance I do think it's a lesser film than not having Arthur in it probably because he was such a brilliant character he was so good for all of the reasons we've mentioned because he was completely unpredictable and he was

1:17:35Chris Hewitt:And they couldn't have recast because they recast Duke No, recasting would have been a terrible idea Not after six years of it

1:17:39Alex Godfrey:You can do a kind of an aging up recasting I don't think that's a problem but I don't you know you couldn't recast someone who was fundamental to the entire series all the way through because like not being funny who remembered Duke from the final season? No one whereas Arthur when I heard that he'd been recast because he technically has been recast I was horrified absolutely horrified by that I'm like why would you ever do that and when I saw what they'd done with it I was like okay now I get it fine okay I don't mind that That was Gene Hackman in Superman 2 reshoots.

1:18:08Chris Hewitt:So that was Gene Hackman? Really? As Arthur at the end? Yeah. That's amazing. Well, no longer is Welcome to Mooseport his last film, which is a good thing. Do we know who was cast as Arthur in the film? I'm looking at the cast list right now, and I don't see anything. No, I don't know. So I don't know whether they've actually officially announced who that was. I mean, to a certain extent, it almost doesn't matter, does it? It's just, whose silhouette shall we use for this? We get glimpses of a face, but not enough. Yeah, like, there's a moustache there somewhere. Yeah, being strangled off by his brother.

1:18:43I will say that also those scenes were clearly, like, you can't see his face. This is the best we can do. Do you know what I mean? Watching all of those scenes with Tommy and Shelby in the car, it was like, they're trying their best here. You know? Yeah, it's an awkward situation. I think they were kind of almost, I guess, backed into in a way. Yeah, it's interesting. it's like I mean dare I bring up The Rise of Skywalker but

1:19:05Alex Godfrey:that would have been a very different film had Carrie Fisher not died and you know as I just said I think this would have been a different film with a much more interesting dynamic if Arthur was still involved and they might have even done the same plot bit there but you would have seen it done better because you would have had the guy in it yeah

1:19:25Chris Hewitt:alright anything else you'd like to talk about because it becomes an action movie for a lot of it there's a great showdown at the end between the picky blinders and some Nazis in the Liverpool docks which was nice to see I enjoyed the showdown between Tim Roth's Beckett, Tim Roth by the way I thought was great in this film I said this to him when I interviewed him for the podcast his Beckett is deliciously evil and is always the smartest man in the room and I enjoyed watching that happen I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get more of a showdown between him and Tommy. We get that scene with the horses where they're shooting at each other.

1:20:06Chris Hewitt:That was a good scene. Yeah, I like that.

1:20:08Alex Godfrey:But they needed De Niro Pacino. That scene reminded me of, is it, which, it's a Melbourne, is it Blazing Saddles? Where they're coming, having a shootout, but they're actually like, oh, it's a naked gun, isn't it? It's a naked gun, yeah. And they're having a shootout and they're out a foot apart. It's like, that's what that reminded me of. So that scene didn't really work for me. It has to be said. It was fun. It was. It's like you open up from like 10 feet away with a machine gun it's like you are terrible at this terribly spraying bullets everywhere no one gets it it was very profundo because you know and then Tim Roth escapes and it's almost like oh I'll get you next time Tim Roth yeah but it's just like he's lying in wait for him and he's armed and he just strolls out like there's I don't know it was just there was a layer of stupidity on both sides there that I just wasn't there for I didn't buy it

1:20:52Chris Hewitt:get a new car Tim Roth you've just marked yourself like oh he's driving around in a car with three bullet bullet holes in it just go to Avis get a new car yeah I don't know anything else anything else I enjoyed this movie I had a decent time with it it is evident you guys did not

1:21:08Alex Godfrey:no I didn't I actually did I thought three stars was a fair review for it I thought it was decent it's just disappointing because the bar was set very high and I expected a lot more from it so it didn't deliver what I thought Peaky deserved and it didn't deliver what I wanted and weirdly I'm in a position where I mean the finale of the show I felt was slightly disappointing. I did not love it. So I was very open to them having another go at it, another swing and actually sending Tommy out. But it wasn't supposed to be different. The film was always coming. Right. So, but if you take the series as a whole, because that's another bugbear of mine.

1:21:44Alex Godfrey:Don't have a series and then finish the series in a film. Just fucking finish the series for God's sake. Do you know what I mean? Whereas if you have it as, right, this is a series and it's self-contained and then this is like an epilogue to it, That's another way of looking at it. And that's more what this tried to do because of the time jump. But, you know, if you, like I say, it was slightly unsatisfying, that final episode of season six. But then to go into this, and I had the same feeling at the end of this. I felt slightly hollow, slightly misserved, slightly disappointed, underwhelmed. And I was a bit like, oh, is that it?

1:22:16It's because I think, this is how I felt when I watched it, I did enjoy it. I did find it entertaining, but just superficially. I just thought you know it looked brilliant you know sonic sounded great the sound design the sound mix was great you know too many fucking needle drops I mean come on I really like

1:22:36Alex Godfrey:we should mention the new recording of Red Right Hand that Nick Cave did because he's all the kind of growlier voice you know there's like a hundred thousand cigarettes in every line of that song it's fantastic and so yeah I really like that and I like that it was a really lo-fi version of it as well rather than the slightly more bombastic one that we get I know I've had it up to here with the lo-fi remake. I mean, if you fucking, the traitors, I can't. Give me the fucking, the slowed down versions. You're right, Alex. These foreboding, slowed down versions of songs. I've had it up to here. Stop it.

1:23:06Anyway, there were many, many, many songs in this film and I just thought, one's just finished. Do we need another one?

1:23:13Alex Godfrey:But my point is, Blood pressure. Blood pressure, Alex. It was entertaining on, like you say, on a very shallow level and when it finished, I thought, well, I wasn't bored but there was no substance and it's left me with nothing. I came out of the film thinking and feeling nothing. Yeah. But that's just normal for me. But I also know that's true. I don't feel... When I think about Peaky Blinders, this does not form part of that core memory. For me, the end of season six is the end of Peaky Blinders. You know what it's like? This was like going to Disneyland or a theme park and going on Peaky Blinders to ride.

1:23:50Alex Godfrey:It had that sort of feel to it. The Peaky Coaster. Yeah.

1:23:55Chris Hewitt:Do you think this could have gone on for a long while, but the thing is, Kylian won an Oscar. And maybe in the meantime, he's just like, I want to do other things. They're doing more Peaky. They're doing a spin-off show.

1:24:05Alex Godfrey:What's the spin-off show going to be? The spin-off show is set after the Second World War. It's next gen, isn't it? Yeah, it's the next generation of Peaky Blinders. And weirdly, this film has made me significantly less excited about that. Oh, you'll still watch it. Of course I'll still watch it. It's my literal job. But yeah, it's taken some of the pizzazz out of it for me

1:24:26Chris Hewitt:yeah oh yeah very quickly that scene where Tommy comes back and shoves a grenade down someone's pants or their top it's all the same

1:24:34Alex Godfrey:started well just makes no sense whatsoever

1:24:36Chris Hewitt:Alex loved that line didn't he there's no room for music in pubs music in pubs is always a bad idea yeah that wasn't supposed to be an impression that was just something was that Chris Tarrant what was Chris Tarrant doing in there he was talking to Stephen Knight James James, you know the show more than I do. I did have a thought when that scene was unfolding. Would Tommy Shelby have put a grenade down someone's shirt and sent him off into the streets to do what would have resulted in probably quite a few civilian deaths?

1:25:06Alex Godfrey:No, for so many different reasons. That's what I thought. Him coming back to the garrison is a great moment. That's the pub, is it? Yeah, you put a grenade down, because it's Tommy's pub, essentially. You put a grenade down someone's top. what on earth makes you think they're going to turn around and run out of the room? Yeah. You know, more likely, they're going to rummage around to try and get it and kill everyone in the pub. Either way, a lot of people are going to die. Right. And I don't think Tommy is that unethical. No. But also, it's not even the ethics. It's just fucking impractical. It's just like, he's inside, you know, by all means, stick a grenade down his top and then kick him off a cliff.

1:25:41Alex Godfrey:Sure. But you're in the blast radius.

1:25:44Chris Hewitt:In the middle of Birmingham.

1:25:45Alex Godfrey:I'm aware. But, you know, that whole thing annoyed me because it felt, it felt, that's movie logic, isn't it? You're going to put it, and he's going to run outside and run down the street and blow up. No. Maybe he did run off a cliff.

1:25:56Chris Hewitt:It's like Wiley Coyote style. Maybe he did. I want to find out more about that guy. But anyway, listen, I think on that note, that is it for our Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man spoiler special. Hope you guys enjoyed it. As ever, thank you so much for subscribing and for supporting the podcast. And all that remains now is to say goodbye to my two colleagues of such lethal cunning, both of whom have made it to the end of the podcast technically alive. Well done. We did it, James. We did it, Alex. Thanks. We did it. Spiritually alive. I mean, physically alive. Spiritually dead. I can't even talk.

1:26:32Chris Hewitt:I think Alex might have died. Yeah. It's entirely possible. All right. Well, that's it. Goodbye, please, guys. And I am off to immerse myself in the only TV show worth a damn. OG Law & Order. Jack McCoy. I'm coming, baby.

1:26:49Alex Godfrey:I'm coming.

1:26:50Chris Hewitt:Thanks for listening. See you next time.

1:26:52Alex Godfrey:Bye.