MOB RULE (PEAKY BLINDERS, SERIES FOUR)

If there was ever one motto 'Peaky Blinders' needed to take to heart going into Series Four, it would be "back to basics".

In a bid to impress audiences with the scale of his ambition for the third series, Steven Knight cooked up an elaborate meal involving a jewellery heist, an Italian vendetta, a dodgy Catholic priest, a cursed sapphire and a plot about Russians on either side of the revolutionary divide.

But instead of dazzling the audience, it confused viewers and proved hard to swallow.

Things were undoubtedly much better when all Cillian Murphy's Tommy Shelby had to worry about was trying to outwit Sam Neill's Chief Inspector Campbell.

Sometimes the best dishes really do turn out to be the least complex.

And so Knight has pared back the international politics and concentrated on a good old fashioned gangster vendetta for Series Four, pitting the Peaky Blinders against the might of the US Mafia.

Oscar winner Adrien Brody is the latest star to grace the show, portraying Sicilian American mobster Luca Changretta.

Luca is as hard and relentless an enemy you could face and is intent on making the Shelbys suffer for the deaths of his father Vincente and brother Angel in the previous series.

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

The start of series four, though, finds Helen McCrory's Polly, Paul Anderson's Arthur, Finn and Joe Cole's Michael and John facing the gallows after their arrest in the previous series in a move that Tommy anticipated.

A Royal reprieve spares all their lives, thanks to Tommy acquiring some rather interesting blackmail material on the King during the jewellery heist.

Following their release from prison the family scatters, with most of them nursing resentment towards Tommy for putting them in jail for six months and almost getting them executed.

A cocaine fuelled Michael has gone back to work for the Shelby corporation.

John and Arthur have opted to lead the quiet life in country cottages but continue to have fraught marriages to Aimee Ffion-Edwards' Esme and Kate Phillips' Bible thumping Linda.

Polly has taken to the bottle, haunted by ghosts.

Luca Changretta, meanwhile, has arrived on English shores from New York to serve each member of the Shelby family a black hand - meaning their lives are in danger.

Living under this threat, the family are forced to consider burying the hatchet as they assess their options.

This becomes all the more urgent when Tommy realises the Peaky Blinders have been infiltrated by the Mafia who intend to kill the family on Christmas Day, with Luca reserving the last killing for him.

Believing in safety in numbers, he calls a Christmas summit of the Shelby family.

John, however, refuses to reconcile with Tommy, insisting he and Esme can manage on their own.

That turns out to be a foolish move.

Changretta and his men turn up at his cottage, filling him and Michael with bullets when the latter is sent by Tommy to pick his brother and sister-in-law up.

With Michael fighting for his life and the family mourning John's death, the remaining Shelbys agree to put their differences aside to deal with the threat from Changretta. 

Tommy's solution at John's memorial is to engage Aidan Gillen's gypsy killer Aberama Gold - a move that Polly is opposed to.

Polly starts to concoct a plan instead for her and Michael to leave Birmingham for Australia - something her son will not countenance until the family sorts out the threat from Luca Changretta.

Luca, however, proves relentless in his quest for vengeance, almost killing Arthur in an attack in the factory.

While contending with the threat from Changretta, Tommy also has to deal with growing union discontent among his workers fermented by Charlie Murphy's Jessie Eden.

He takes on the responsibility top of nurturing the promising professional boxing career of Aberama Gold's son, Jack Rowan's Bonnie as part of his deal with the killer.

But can he protect the Shelby family from Luca's relentless pursuit of vengeance? 

Coming on the back of the unsatisfying, over-engineered narrative strands of Series Three, the fourth series of Knight's period gangster drama gets the show back on track by keeping things simple.

Knight and his director David Caffrey focus on just one threat - Luca Changretta.

By keeping the plot focused on the underworld and not overcomplicating things by cackhandedly tying the Shelbys into wider historical events, they deliver the most action driven series to date and arguably its most thrilling.

As both sides trade blows in their feud, they devise and sometimes execute clever plots to take out their rivals.

They don't always work 

Aberama Gold almost snares Luca in one trap he sets for the Sicilian.

An epic pursuit also takes place through the back streets of Birmingham involving Luca's gang and Tommy.

It's not all bullets and blood, though.

The bubbling resentment between various members of the family opens up the potential for betrayal and keeps the audience guessing as to the motives of many of the characters.

Caffrey and his crew do a great job delivering the stylish images, slick editing, smart costumes and sets we have come to expect from the show.

There are the obligatory nods to gangster epics like 'The Godfather' and 'Once Upon A Time In America'.

As always, there's a cool soundtrack that includes this time tracks from Johnny Cash, Imelda May, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Foals, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Laura Marling, Jarvis Cocker and Iggy Pop, Radiohead, Savages, The Kills and, of course, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

And with the raising of Knight's game comes more effective performances from Cillian Murphy, McCrory, Anderson, Finn and Joe Cole, Rundle, Ffion-Edwards and Phillips, as well as from other series regulars like Ned Dennehy Benjamin Zephaniah, Packy Lee and Tom Hardy who reprises his amusing turn as the Jewish gangster Alfie Solomons.

Murphy's Tommy Shelby, McCrory's Aunt Polly and Anderson's Arthur remain the strongest cards in the Shelby pack as their characters wrestle with the responsibility of keeping the family intact or nursing their own personal grievances. 

Aidan Gillen, Jack Rowan, Charlie Murphy and Adrien Brody are terrific additions to the cast.

The American actor, in particular, brings the right air of menace to proceedings as Luca Changretta.

And to Knight's credit, the boxing bout subplot between Bonnie and Goliath also becomes an apt metaphor for the conflict at the heart of Series Four.

Having wobbled in its previous instalment, it's heartening to see Series Four of 'Peaky Blinders' recapture its form by going back to basics.

That's what 'The Sopranos' and 'Breaking Bad' did so well.

Both shows thrived on keeping their focus on the machinations of the underworld and by avoiding over-elaborate plots.

They didn't go on mad flights of fancy about Tony Soprano or Walter White dealing with the Cali cartel or the AUC in Colombia.

Those shows just followed the unfolding of the gangland chess games in New Jersey and New Mexico, as their anti-heroes used their native cunning to avoid being checkmated by formidable underworld opponents. 

With 'Peaky Blinders' heading into a fifth series, a writer as talented as Knight should be able to appreciate why those shows have become classics and why the fourth instalment of his own drama works.

Knowing it is one thing.

The question is: does he have the discipline to show that lesson has been learned?

(Series Four of 'Peaky Blinders' was broadcast on BBC2 from November 15-December 20, 2017)