Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is in cinemas now, but does Tommy Shelby manage to escape the life he has created? Find out below.
The movie spin-off from the hit Netflix series arrived in select cinemas on Friday (March 6), and will be hitting the streaming service on March 20.
Cillian Murphy returns as the lead character Tommy Shelby in the film, while series creator Steven Knight has written the screenplay and season one director Tom Harper is also back.
“It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me,” Murphy has said. “It is very gratifying to be collaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans.”
Stephen Graham also returns as union leader Hayden Stagg, Sophie Rundle is back as Tommy’s sister Ada Shelby and Ned Dennehy’s Charlie Strong is also featured. Ian Peck’s Curly and Packy Lee’s Johnny Dogs also reprise their roles.
A number of new actors star in the movie: Dune’s Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth and Jay Lycurgo have all joined the cast, alongside Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan who plays Tommy’s wayward son Duke Shelby, who was first introduced in season six.
In a three-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Perhaps it’s not as emotional as you might hope but this sombre final chapter of Peaky Blinders still wraps things up as tightly as a burial shroud. And for that, we doff our razor-lined caps.”
The bustling soundtrack includes numerous appearances from Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten, as well as Amy Taylor of Amyl & The Sniffers, Nick Cave and Lankum.
The film is set in 1940, several years after the end of season six. Tommy has been living in self-imposed exile following the death of his daughter Ruby and the revelation that he killed his brother Arthur Shelby during a drunken confrontation. In his absence, leadership of the Peaky Blinders has passed to his son Duke.
Duke has become entangled with a British fascist collaborator named Beckett, who is involved in a Nazi-linked plan to distribute forged British banknotes in order to destabilise the wartime economy.
Tommy returns to Birmingham after the assassination of his sister Ada and after learning that Duke has been drawn into Beckett’s scheme. Confronting his son, Tommy forces him to break with Beckett and helps organise a plan to destroy the counterfeiting operation.
In the climax, Tommy and Duke infiltrate the site where the forged notes are being produced while their allies attack Beckett’s men. Tommy confronts Beckett directly, killing him and successfully destroying the operation, but suffering a fatal gunshot wound in the process.
Knowing he will not survive, Tommy asks Duke to shoot him so that Duke can fully assume leadership of the Peaky Blinders. Duke carries out the request, and Tommy dies shortly afterwards. The film therefore answers its central question by ending Tommy Shelby’s story while transferring control of the organisation to the next generation.
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