British IP holders are the best. When they could so clearly cash in more and more shallow, condescending ways. The controllers always pivot and evolve creatively first and foremost, making the fans even more excited to come back instead of pissing them all off, Marvel. The Immortal Man gives some finality to the Peaky Blinders Tale, while also enticing first time watchers like me to consider the TV series AND leaving new roads open for future projects. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Peaky Blinders: Open Wide anytime soon, thank goodness!
Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) isn’t the plot driver of The Immortal Man. That instead is John Beckett (Tim Roth), a Nazi sympathizer trying to smuggle in counterfeit money to cripple the British banking system during WWII. Beckett hopes to do this with the support of gangs like the Peaky Blinders, run by, surprise surprise, Tommy’s son Duke (Barry Keoghan). Tommy’s sister/Duke’s aunt MP Ada Thorne (Sophie Rundle), is scared Duke isn’t ready for what he’s getting himself into, begging Tommy to put on the tweed 3 piece and get back in the game. Haunted by ghosts of his past, Tommy is eventually swayed by what appears to be a ghost of his long lost flame Zelda (Rebecca Ferguson), Duke’s mother. Bring on the flannel and flat caps!
After the stellar opening, I was expecting a rip roaring action thriller of some kind for the Peaky Blinders movie. But as we know, character and writing comes first. We get a full parallel backstory for both dad and son, letting us know who they are separately; we don’t see them meeting until halfway into The Immortal Man. But by then, the great Stephen Knight has pulled off the near impossible. Tommy Shelby’s backstory works for novice’s like me, a little gimmicky, but mostly immersing me in the guy I’m gonna be rooting for, and it works for the Peaky Blinders superfan, catching us up on what Tommy’s been up to since the end of Series 6. At the same time Knight is weaving in Duke’s goings on, showing the life he’s built for himself, and his current standing in the community and the power structure during the World War Birmingham tumult. So, yes the two are inextricably linked, but as far as the movie goes, they’re put on equal character footing living separate lives, and Duke’s given enough to make him worthy of top billing, also helped by another understated emotionally buried Barry Keoghan performance. Knight then connects them, and integrates their dueling motivations into the larger narrative, hinging the big climax on the movie yes around some setpieces, but moreso around key decisions Tommy & Duke are gonna make when it comes to their family and livelihood.
But being a movie, Knight knows he’s gotta go bigger, and brings director Tom Harper on to deliver his script. The opening sequence sets the Blitz stage appropriately: a jarring but spectacular explosion with costumes setting us in Birmingham 1940. The period detail aside from the flannel & flat, is sterling, with Tommy starting the movie in a rural estate out of time and maybe reality, then juxtaposed with Duke and his Peaky Blinders shenanigans in period specific Northern England. There’s a couple fistfights in wonderfully staged settings to keep the antsy alpha bro engaged during the character development, with an unexpected sex scene which might surprise the chaste anglophiles like my mom. Then Tim Roth’s counterfeit money shows up, meaning we’re going out with a big bang like we came in. The explosions are fun as hell and well thought out, with just the right amount of mayhem until we need the requisite pathos to send Peaky Blinders off into the Midlands.
So props to you Cillian Murphy. I love how you’re cashing in on that Oppenheimer Oscar: a lovely mixture of important dramas with message and bite, and big budget IP extensions, in all the best ways! Don’t watch this hyperlink, if you want a big movie this year spoiled.