While I liked what I saw of the show on Netflix, I have to admit my ignorance at the depth of devotion that “Peaky Blinders” inspired in some fans. When I gazed over the heads of the audience at an opening night screening of “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” and saw one flat cap after another, I was set straight.
As the lights went down and the theater went dark, a man bellowed, “By order of the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders!” and a lusty cheer went up from the crowd. Did they get what they were hoping for from this return to Birmingham?
Probably yes and probably no. Taking place six years after the series ended in 2022, it’s a raw and violent gangster drama, full of hard-looking men getting mud and blood on their nice suits. But it’s also slower and more ruminative than the show usually was, bringing the Shakespearean tragedy of family bonds and betrayal to the forefront.
Much of that elegaic tone has to do with where we meet the show’s main character, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy). The one-time leader of the Peaky Blinders gang, Tommy now lives in self-imposed exile, drinking himself into oblivion and writing his memoirs in an isolated country house. The year is 1940, but Tommy is ignoring the war as best he can, haunted by the ghosts of lost family and friends. After six seasons of “Peaky Blinders,” there’s a lot of ghosts.
But World War II is hard to ignore. Tommy’s estranged son Duke (Barry Keoghan) is now running the gang in Birmingham, and his sociopathic management style makes his pa look like a choirboy. Not only is he stealing guns from a bombed-out arms factory meant to be shipped to the boys on the front, but he’s gotten in bed with the local fascists.
The traitorous Beckett (an enjoyably sniveling Tim Roth) wants the Peaky Blinders’ help in a Nazi scheme to flood the country with millions in counterfeit bills, which will crash the economy.
It takes a while to rouse Tommy from his grief-stricken retirement, aided by a mysterious Romany woman (Rebecca Ferguson) who claims to channel the spirit of his late wife. But when Tommy finally puts on the peaked cap and heads back to Birmingham to straighten things out, another cheer erupted in the theater.
The cinematography is so enveloping that you’d swear you leave the theater with dirt under your fingernails.
Written by series creator Steven Knight (“Locke”) and directed by Tom Harper (“Wild Rose”), “The Immortal Man” spends a little too long wallowing in Tommy’s misery before getting to that moment of catharsis. As a result, the second half of the film feels somewhat rushed getting to its rat-a-tat showdown between Tommy and Beckett (with Duke’s allegiances shifting between them).
We get a couple of good “Tommy” moments, as when a brash young soldier tries to step up to him in his own Garrison pub and gets his comeuppance in spectacular fashion. And there’s a fairly iconic scene where Tommy rides down the center of town on a black horse as the show’s theme song, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand,” smolders on the soundtrack.
If the plotting is unsatisfying, it’s still a pleasure to re-immerse yourself in this world, in the dirty canals and faded wallpaper of working-class Birmingham, the filthy streets and hard stares. The cinematography, worth experiencing on the big screen, is so enveloping that you’d swear you leave the theater with dirt under your fingernails.
Murphy, who became an Oscar winner since the last episode aired, is still mesmerizing as Tommy, the death’s head with baby blue eyes. The new members of the cast are well integrated – Keoghan, looking great in a suit as Duke vacillates between sneering crime boss and damaged lost boy – would be perfectly suited for a spin-off series, if that’s what “The Immortal Man” is angling for.
If not, it’s still a fitting sendoff to the characters, and a tip of the cap to the fans who made it such an unexpected hit.
“Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” is now in theaters. In Madison, it is playing at Flix Brewhouse Madison. It will premiere March 20 on Netflix.
I have so many questions which I won’t pose here because spoilers. Duke’s suit was excellent — the new Peakys are chicer than the earlier gen right? Or is my memory not great?