FAISAL BIN IQBAL

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man arrived on Netflix on March 20, and the audience reaction was mixed, with many, including myself, feeling that the film fell just short of the grand farewell the series and Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby deserved.

The Immortal Man opens with Tommy already deep into his self-imposed exile. In his absence, Tommy’s son Duke Shelby, played by Barry Keoghan, has taken over as the leader of the new generation of the Peaky Blinders. However, due to certain circumstances, Tommy has to return to his old life and confront Duke, who seems to have taken a brutal approach in leading the Peaky Blinders gang as if it were 1919.

Let’s start off with the movie’s strongest point – the actors. Being the leads, both Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan delivered stellar performances. While Cillian has been doing this role for a while now, Barry is new to this role, yet he manages to deliver a performance that’s on the same level as his counterpart. The writing and plot of the movie are also exciting in their own right. The plot has the Birmingham Blitz — the bombing of Birmingham and surrounding towns in central England by Nazi Germany — as its backdrop while Tommy attempts to knock some sense into Duke regarding running the family business and handling a few other matters on the side.

As for the film’s negatives, there are plenty. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say it could’ve done a better job at managing a few of its character absences. After all, Tommy isn’t the only character in the series who deserved a proper sendoff. Pacing was another issue that bothered me. The Immortal Man’s plot would’ve fitted in nicely into Peaky Blinders’ six-episode season formula. But the film’s two-hour runtime wasn’t the best medium to deliver this story. And while viewers did have room to process the various events unfolding in the film, it still felt rushed.

The Immortal Man arrives not as a disappointment, but as a series that never quite justifies its own existence. The show had found its natural conclusion with season six. Instead, in what reads as a bid to clear the decks for a planned Peaky Blinders sequel, the creators have rushed through the motions, and in doing so, denied Tommy Shelby the farewell a character of his stature deserved.