'Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man' movie review: A stylish return tinged with grief

A show that ran for six seasons and spanned nearly a decade, Peaky Blinders (Netflix) is opera on OTT, its impact more far-reaching than the piquing of interest in flat caps or tourists viewing Birmingham with new eyes.

Now, The Immortal Man arrives as an epilogue, the atmospherics intact and the violence as pale and cold as ever. And Tommy Shelby? He remains himself, Cillian Murphy’s uncanny stare into nothingness, saying more than any dialogue. Shelby is doping on grief. A bone-numbing fatigue haunts him, and he comes alive only when he “sees” the spirits that haunt his empty mansion, where he lives in seclusion, trying to write his own story.

But return he must, and he does when his estranged son, Erasmus “Duke” Shelby (Barry Keoghan), gets entangled in a Nazi plot. It is 1940, and the dark days of war are upon Old Blighty; something good must come from something bad, innit?

Intended for fans of the original series, the film can stand alone, though some moments can be puzzling. For instance, reasons for the deep bond between Shelby and his faithful sidekick “Dogs” (Packy Lee) would require some guesswork from non-fans. The makers know there is no outdoing the original, so they focus on Shelby’s corroding inner self, making the film, inadvertently, a study of a man in deep sorrow.

It is a risky gamble, but the shift to Nazis as villains reframes the flatcaps as reluctant patriots, going about their business with the same aesthetics: post-modern rock BGM, stylised coal-tinged violence, and Birmingham basking in its glorious bleakness.