Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (15)

In 1940 Birmingham, Duke Shelby and a new generation of Peaky Blinders are drawn into a Nazi plot that puts the future of the family at stake. Duke's estranged father Tommy returns from self-imposed exile to face his demons and save the clan in its darkest hour. To protect a legacy that he nurtured so fiercely, Tommy must consider burning the past to the ground and starting afresh.

LondonNet Film Review

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Four years after the award-winning TV series Peaky Blinders concluded in sombre fashion, Oscar winner Cillian Murphy reprises his role as crime boss Tommy Shelby in a bruising and violent caper directed by Tom Harper. The Second World War casts a long shadow over this handsomely-crafted big-screen outing, punctuated by clearly telegraphed explosions of violence that spray freshly-spilt blood across the streets of 1940 Birmingham as air raid sirens ring out across the second largest city in the UK…

A direct hit by a German bomb on the Small Arms Factory kills the entire night shift and devastates residents, who openly yearn for the return of Tommy (Murphy) from self-imposed exile. He has been languishing in the countryside, tormented by the ghost of his daughter Ruby as he pens a memoir about his experiences as leader of the Peaky Blinders. In his absence, eldest son Duke (Barry Keoghan) runs amok with a new generation of gang members.

Their reckless disregard for morality lures Duke into the clutches of Nazi sympathiser John Beckett (Tim Roth), who is plotting to flood the British economy with £350 million in forged bank notes. This abrupt injection of cash should destabilise the last remaining western European nation to resist the German advance. Tommy’s sister Ada (Sophie Rundle) visits and implores her brother to return home to save Duke from himself. “I was not father, I was a form of government,” growls Tommy. A traveller (Rebecca Ferguson), who claims to be the twin sister of Duke’s mother Zelda, manages to prick Tommy’s conscience and he eventually returns to Birmingham to extricate his son from the diabolical Nazi plot before more lives are lost. “I promise you, from this bad will come some good,” Tommy pledges aloud to fallen ancestors.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a quietly dignified conclusion to the sprawling saga. Murphy taps into his character’s deep well of grief and regret (“All of us are dead except the one who wants to be dead…”) setting in motion the agonising sacrifices of a second hour that pits criminal fraternities against gun-toting German infiltrators. Visual callbacks to bygone characters from the TV show’s nine-year run, as gravestones and photographs, appeal to ardent fans but don’t alienate newcomers to this unforgiving universe of barbarism and betrayal.

There are also cameos from familiar faces including Stephen Graham as Tommy’s no-nonsense Liverpudlian counterpart, Hayden Stagg. Steven Knight’s script packs surprisingly little plot into 112 minutes but the pedestrian pacing never feels like a slog. Explosive wartime action sequences are staged with aplomb but the biggest fireworks are reserved for confrontations between characters including a skirmish in ankle-high mud between Murphy and Keoghan.

– Kim Hu