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Well, look who’s back knocking on the door of me old soot-covered terrace house. Haven’t seen him in four years. That naughty boy with the cold eyes and that pack of rascals he calls a family. But there’s a heart of gold floating down at the bottom of a glass of whiskey should you give him enough time to find his soul. Yes, Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby is back for one last hurrah in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, so don your scally, light up a cigarette, cue up some thorny British indie rock and pass the bottle ‘round.
Where to even fookin’ begin? When Peaky Blinders first swaggered onto our screens in 2013, Cillian Murphy was merely a great Irish actor who had been in some cool films, while the rest of the cast was filled out with storied character actors, talented young up-and-comers, and the occasional big-name guest. Set in Birmingham, England, in between the World Wars, and chronicling the lives of the Shelby family and the Peaky Blinders gang, the show looked amazing, featured a highly curated hipster soundtrack, and redefined British cool for the first time since Britpop. Anglophiles swooned, critics cooed, and the quality of the acting and production design made the often-incredulous and improbable plot twists used to push the story forward easy to overlook.
When Peaky Blinders Season 6 came to an end, creator Steven Knight said the show was over as a series but to expect a movie in the future. Four years later, here we are. Murphy is now an Oscar-winning leading man; Anya Taylor-Joy, who played a minor character in Seasons 5 and 6, is a big star; and Paul Anderson, who played wildcard Shelby brother Arthur, is battling personal demons, not unlike his on-screen character. The new 112-minute feature film puts a period on the sentence and will appeal to fans despite its predictable shortcomings.
Returning to the fray are Tommy Shelby (Murphy), Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee), Uncle Charlie (Ned Dennehy), Hayden Stagg (Stephen Graham), and Tommy’s sister Ada Thorne (Sophie Rundle), though don’t get too used to her. Also back is Duke Shelby, Tommy’s “gypsy son” and heir to his criminal empire, though actor Conrad Khan, who played him in Season 6, has been replaced by Barry Keoghan, everyone’s new favorite Irish thespian. Missing in action are Arthur, Jewish gangster Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy), Tommy’s estranged wife Lizzie, son Charles, and all the pervy fascists we met in Seasons 5 and 6, including Anya Taylor-Joy’s Gina Gray. New on the scene are Tim Roth as bad guy John Beckett and Rebecca Ferguson as—get this—Duke’s mother’s twin sister, Kaulo. For the role, Ferguson adopts a bad accent that doesn’t sound English and doesn’t sound…I don’t even know what she was going for, she just sounds weird.
Photo: Robert Viglasky / © Netflix / Courtesy Everett CollectionSet in 1940, the film’s plot revolves around “Operation Bernhard,” an actual wartime plan by Nazi Germany to crash the British economy by injecting it with millions in counterfeit cash. Beckett is part of a British fifth column working with the Nazis. Roth plays him with a mix of smarm and sympathy. Like the Shelbys, he’s a gangster because his choices in life were few, and no cartoon villain like antagonists past. Meanwhile, the Peaky Blinders under Duke’s leadership are finding opportunity and tommy guns amidst the rubble of a bombed-out Birmingham, much to the shame and horror of his aunt, who now holds her older brother’s seat in Parliament.
When last we saw Tommy, he had given up his kingdom, blown up his mansion, and was living as a mendicant horseman (always with the horses, these guys). I guess the explosives didn’t do much because he’s now back at the mansion. While Duke runs wild and starts collabing with the Nazis, wooed by surrogate father Beckett—who says, “If you were my son I’d cherish you”—Tommy talks to ghosts, smokes opium, and works on a memoir called The Immortal Man. As Uncle Charlie puts it, “There’s only one man who can stop Duke Shelby and that man is writing a book.”
Apparently, all it takes to spur Tommy into action is a romp in the sheets with his dead baby-mama’s identical twin sister. After Kaulo urges him to intervene, he heads into Birmingham to knock some sense into his son via a truly grotesque fistfight in a yard full of pig feces. You know shit’s about to get real when Tommy jumps on the back of a horse and Nick Cave starts playing, which leads to a shootout with Beckett and sets the stage for the film’s explosive finale. Without giving it all away, let’s just say there are no immortal men in The Immortal Man.
Like Tommy Shelby himself, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is deeply faulted but with ultimately redeeming qualities. Besides Roth’s excellent turn as Beckett, the only character development is what we know from the series. The soundtrack is disorienting in its need to jam in as many songs as it can in less than two hours, and the usual illogical plot lines persist (like, why didn’t they just call in the army?). As an addendum to a beloved franchise, it rates above The Many Saints of Newark, but far below El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, a great standalone film regardless of its serial origins. The upside? It looks great and it puts a definitive period on the sentence. That alone makes it essential viewing and satisfying for any fan of the franchise, a fellowship of which I am a part. Like the Oasis reunion tour, who cares if it’s a cash-in as long as they play the hits?
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now playing in theaters, and will begin streaming on Netflix on Friday, March 20.
Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician.
English (US)