TV crime thrillers don’t come much tougher than Steven Knight’s landmark period drama Peaky Blinders, but Tom Hardy now fronts a series that somehow makes the Shelby family look tame. Hardy famously plays Jewish mobster Alfie Solomons in Birmingham’s darkest gangland saga, but his portrayal of a more contemporary London mob fixer is even darker.
Working on behalf of the notorious Harrigan crime family, Harry Da Souza metes out vicious punishment to anyone who stands in his way. With Guy Ritchie as co-director and executive producer, MobLand is episode after episode of all-out warfare in the modern-day criminal underworld of Britain’s capital.
While Peaky Blinders has certainly influenced the next generation of TV shows about British gangsters, its heavily stylized period settings and slow-burning central storylines are no match for this Paramount+ thriller in terms of sheer brutality. It’s safe to say that Alfie Solomons, for one, wouldn’t dare trifle with Harry Da Souza.
Ahead of MobLand season 2’s imminent release, it’s worth recapping some of the moments in the show’s first season that marked it out as an especially grisly crime thriller. Guy Ritchie tends not to pull any punches when he’s involved in telling a gangster story, but even he must have flinched at some of the violence on display here.
Tom Hardy’s MobLand Is One Of Britain’s Toughest Gangster Shows
From its very first scene, Tom Hardy’s latest gangster series adorns its tale of internecine criminal dealings with a hail of gunfire. By the time MobLand season 1 ends, we’re left in no doubt that it’s one of the hardest-hitting thrillers on television.
The show begins its first episode in spectacular fashion, by gunning down multiple gangs in the process of making peace with one another. There’s no shortage of blood spilled, and MobLand isn’t afraid to show it. While Peaky Blinders serves up its fair share of bloody violence, it doesn’t do so with quite such carefree abandon.
What follows is a full-throttle assault on the senses, from merciless stabbings to a disorientating nightclub brawl. At the center of almost every act of brazen aggression committed throughout season 1 is Harry Da Souza, a mob fixer who’s learnt the hard way how to look after himself, as well as those paying his bills.
It’s telling that Harry has the last laugh even as the season ends with an injury that could have killed him, as his wife Jan pierces his chest with a kitchen knife when a marital argument turns violent. Harry grimaces through the pain, perhaps seeing the amusing side of succumbing to a domestic row after evading various hardened criminals.
MobLand Makes Hardy’s Role In Peaky Blinders Look Tame By Comparison
Not even Alfie Solomons could smile in the face of death the way Tom Hardy’s MobLand protagonist manages to. But then, Harry Da Souza is a distinctly modern kind of crime genre hardman, for whom an automatic weapon is a basic tool of the trade, and no gangster is too big to be killed off in cold blood.
MobLand season 2 appears to be even more difficult for Harry to get through with his life intact, as enemies lurk round every corner, including in the house of the crime family he works for. What’s more, Hardy’s fixer has a new rival in Johnny Flynn’s Beast, whose mononymic moniker seems to be a succinct description of his character traits.
If the season’s trailer is anything to go by, it’s going to be an even bloodier affair than the last one, with more bullets spent by everyone involved, from Harry to the Harrigans and their gangland rivals. Justifiably so, since MobLand’s no-holes-barred approach to depicting the violence of organized crime is compelling enough to draw in millions of fans.
- Release Date
-
March 30, 2025
- Network
-
Paramount+
- Directors
-
Daniel Syrkin
-
-
Pierce Brosnan
Conrad Harrigan