Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, a new Netflix-BBC coproduction in US and UK theaters now, is a big-screen outing for Cillian Murphy’s anti-hero, Tommy Shelby, a traumatized WWI veteran and brutal gangster. Over the course of six blood-soaked seasons, Murphy has written Tommy’s legend into the long, proud tradition of British gangster stories. As a longtime fan of the show, I was eager to see how it would fare in the cinema.
You needn’t have seen any of the series, which is kind of like a period Sopranos with distinctive Midlands accents and modern rock music on the soundtrack. With a minimum of exposition, the movie quickly fills you in on everything you need to know about Tommy and the Peaky Blinders gang — so named because they keep razors in their flat caps and do unspeakable things with them.
Fans of the show needn’t worry, either — the movie is written by series creator Steven Knight and directed by Tom Harper, who directed some of the first series. Stylistically, it’s very much of a piece with the show. Bloody violence in dark pubs contrasts with Tommy’s opium- and PTSD-inflected visions, ghostly images of the dead and supernatural gypsy witchcraft. It’s a whole vibe.
Gray-haired, bespectacled and haunted by his dead family, Tommy is hiding in his empty manor house after the events of season 6. Literally writing his legend, he’s trying to put his life story on paper in an effort to exorcise his many demons. His estranged son, Duke (Barry Keoghan), has taken over leadership of the Peaky Blinders and is making a name for himself as a violent war profiteer as bombs pound the industrial city of Birmingham, England, in the early years of WWII.
Barry Keoghan is the new king of Birmingham’s underworld.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that, soon enough, Tommy puts away his reading glasses, dons his signature three-piece suit and flat cap, and drives his glorious Rolls-Royce into Birmingham to face his wayward son. Murphy is as formidable and elegant as ever in the role.
The show has always woven in real-life figures and I was expecting Tommy to revisit his long relationship with Winston Churchill and maybe end up working for British intelligence. It’s not quite that high-concept. A traitor called John Beckett (Tim Roth) plans to distribute a vast haul of Nazi counterfeit cash via gangs like the Peaky Blinders and crash the British economy. Will he persuade Duke to betray his country?
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Roth is comically odious in the role, a real scenery-chewing villain. The movie opens with him loading millions of fake £5 notes onto a train at a concentration camp. He turns to the camera and sneers, “Heil fackin’ Hitler,” and that’s about all you need to know about him.
Having Barry Keoghan play Cillian Murphy’s son is a genius bit of casting. I absolutely love Keoghan in everything he’s in, and as Duke, he delivers sneering disdain, cold-eyed brutality and, when pushed, a sweaty panic that feels real.
The wonderful Stephen Graham returns as Liverpudlian gangster Stagg, a key ally of Tommy Shelby’s.
It’s quite a big-budget production, with some impressive fireballs and firefights, but it’s not what gamers would call AAA — a solid AA. One scene struck me in particular: When Duke is stalking his prey through the bombed-out city streets, it cuts over and over again. A more ambitious movie might have done it in a single take. Nevertheless, its beautiful period costumes, eerie misty canals and a cast full of characterful faces give it a distinctive visual identity.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man hits Netflix on March 20. If you’re not familiar with the show, I would say it’s well worth a month’s subscription — pour yourself a glass of bootleg whiskey and enjoy an exciting, fast-moving crime drama with a swaggering style of its own. Knight says it’s a “stepping stone” to further seasons of the show, so there’s plenty more where this came from.
Fans — go see it in the cinema. By order of the Peaky Blinders.
