I just realised Peaky Blinders mirrors a key arc from the greatest gangster trilogy ever made

Steven Knight's Peaky Blinders has re-birthed the crime genre, with Cillian Murphy's Tommy Shelby being almost synonymous with the gangster archetype.

The crime show has broken free from many conventions of its genre (especially its unique Birmingham setting). However, there is no doubt that the show is heavily inspired by classic gangster sagas and draws inspiration from its characters and storylines.

While Peaky Blinders is based on a real-life Birmingham gang, the show also borrows heavily from Martin Scorsese classics like Gangs of New York and Goodfellas.

However, I just realised that one of the main storylines in Peaky Blinders directly echoes one of the greatest gangster trilogies ever made, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather.

The Godfather trilogy is the holy grail in the gangster genre, and the Corleone family structure is very similar to the Shelbies, even more so than you realise.

More on this in our story.

I just realised Peaky Blinders' main storyline is inspired by The Godfather

While Peaky Blinders is based on a real-life Birmingham gang in the 1880s, the Shelby family is fictional and the characters are specially written to depict the story of a post-war world. While Knight was inspired to create a story about the real-life gang, the ambitious group leader Tommy Shelby is fictional.

The inspiration comes from the greatest gangster trilogy ever made, The Godfather. I just realised the Shelby brothers mimic the story of the Corleone brothers from the criminal saga, including the paths they took in their respective lives.

Being crime sagas, both The Godfather and Peaky Blinders follow the rise of their respective criminal families, with two brothers, Tommy and Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) and Sonny (James Caan) and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino).

In both stories, the older brothers (Arthur and Sonny) are assumed to be the unannounced leaders of their respective crime families, but as their stories progress, it is clear that they are way too hot-headed and unfit to take over their family operations.

Just like Arthur Shelby, Sonny is also loyal and fierce and has the aggression needed to get the job done. However, he, too, lacks the brains (like his Shelby counterpart) needed to operate in their profession.

When their elder brothers fail to succeed in the family operations, both Murphy's Tommy and Pacino's Michael rise to the occasion and transform their families into criminal organizations, making them the most-feared entities in their respective areas.

While this unconscious tribute to The Godfather is intriguing, Murphy discussed the trilogy's influence on Peaky Blinders in a 2013 interview with Deadline:

''Those films cast such a long shadow and always will do over this genre, and you can’t avoid the influence they’ve had on this; they’re masterful. I’ve watched them and I think you’re always going to pay tribute consciously or subconsciously.''

He added:

''But what I think distinguishes is fundamentally Italian immigrants in an American story whereas our story is fundamentally British. Also, the access to guns in America is obviously different. Here you have to steal them or rob them or inherit them, whereas in America it’s just your right; all those distinctions differentiate it profoundly.''

While Michael and Tommy are both gangsters in different worlds, their major arcs and family structures are quite similar. While Sonny ends up being assassinated and never sees his brother take up his place and rise in the underworld, Arthur survives all through six seasons of the BBC series.

This comparison also made me realise Sonny's plight had he survived in The Godfather. Considering his similarities with the eldest Shelby in Peaky Blinders, I can imagine a similar fate for him, doused in cocaine and alcohol and bordering on suicidal thoughts, just like his Shelby counterpart.

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Also Read: 5 times Tommy Shelby proved he runs the Peaky Blinders even though Arthur is the elder one

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