Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man - Review 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

IN SOME ways, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a very obvious film in the way that it coaxes an ageing, haunted gangster out of self-imposed exile for one last grandstanding struggle.

It follows expected beats and delivers the ensuing carnage with all of the expected style we’ve come to expect from Steven Knight’s powerhouse show (slo-mo action, crunching guitar riffs blowing through the soundtrack).

In all regards, it’s therefore both a crowd pleaser and a genre conformer.

But it’s also immensely enjoyable and, for this critic anyway, a suitably satisfying way to bring this particularly gangster’s story to an end.

The gangster in question is, of course, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), revered head of the Peaky Blinders and chief of a Romani-traveller gang, who has converted his trauma in the trenches of the First World War into a ruthless business with far reaching political ties.

But success has come at a cost and as we revisit Tommy, he’s a shell of his former self… a man haunted by the ghosts of the past and the many lives he has ruined and/or taken (including those of his former loves, a daughter, Ruby, and a brother, Arthur).

He’s content to hide away from the spotlight and complete a memoir until a mysterious woman (Rebecca Ferguson), professing to be the twin of a former lover who can contact the dead, reveals that his son, Erasmus Shelby (Barry Keoghan) is now running the Peaky Blinders and has struck an ill-advised deal with a Nazi sympathiser named Beckett (Tim Roth), to help distribute counterfeit currency that will destroy the economy and enable Hitler to win the Second World War.

Tommy does what any good father would do, therefore, and heads to Birmingham to stop Beckett - whose capacity for cruelty places other remaining Shelby family members in the firing line.

Knight’s film is a high stakes, fast moving affair that eerily nods to contemporary politics in the way that it unfolds amid the threat from right wing politics and fascism. It also highlights the folly of those seduced by fascism, given that Erasmus seems to have overlooked the fact that Romani travellers were classed the same as Jews (and therefore part of the Final Solution) by the Nazis he is seeming to serve.

The subsequent tussle between Murphy and Keoghan is as gutsy as we had every right to expect, fuelled as much by Tommy’s guilt at not being a suitable father as it is the resentment felt by Erasmus for having to grow up without paternal guidance.

It comes to a head in a supremely muddy fight amid some pigs, yet remains a volatile work in progress with betrayal always a possibility.

Keoghan is terrific as Erasmus, exuding both a juvenile arrogance and a pronounced sense of hurt, but Murphy steals the show as the haunted Tommy, desperate to make some kind of amends even as his actions continue to make those around him suffer. The actor can convey so much with just one of his icy stares - whether menace or sorrow. And his journey here is a typically tragic pathway towards some kind of fitting redemption.

It’s tribute to both Knight’s screenplay and Tom Harper’s direction that the film strikes a good balance between the action and the emotion, meaning that come the somewhat moving climax, you’ll feel genuinely invested in the events as they play out.

That’s not to say there aren’t flaws. At a little under two hours, the film does feel like it is sometimes struggling to cope with everything that needs to happen and thereby short-changes some of its supporting cast.

Roth’s gangster, for example, would have benefited from the kind of extended run that past series have offered other antagonists (especially since he delivers the villainy with such relish), while Ferguson also deserves a little more screen time to flesh out her character. Likewise, Tommy’s long suffering but ultra loyal henchman Johnny Dogs, played by Packy Lee.

Stephen Graham also appears fleetingly, as he did in the final season of the show. But again, it would have been nice to see more of an actor of his calibre.

And while a suitable amount of time is given to examining Tommy’s tortured psychology, it would also have been nice to have taken a deeper dive into the politics of the era, especially given the factual backdrop of both the Second World War itself and the tragedy that sets things in motion (involving the bombing of a munitions factory and the lost lives of the women working there).

The generic nature of the overall story arc also feels less daring than usual, even though the trajectory still manages to land a suitably rousing and emotional conclusion.

As a send off to one of TV’s great anti-heroes, The Immortal Man ticks every box it’s supposed to. It should please fans while maintaining interest ahead of forthcoming spin-offs. And that’s worth tipping your Peaky Blinders hat to!

Certificate: 15

Running time: 1hr 54mins