Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man arrived on Netflix on March 20 carrying a Certified Fresh 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and the sort of premise that would be rejected as too on-the-nose if a screenwriter pitched it today. [1] The year is 1940. Tommy Shelby, played once more by Cillian Murphy with his trademark quiet-storm menace, is dragged from rural retirement to confront a Nazi plot to flood Britain with counterfeit currency and collapse the economy from within. Tim Roth plays the fascist treasurer; Barry Keoghan plays the estranged son who nearly falls for it. [2]

Steven Knight, the show's creator, has said the quiet part aloud: the historical themes "feel surprisingly relevant today." [3] One might observe that a story about nationalism dressed in respectable clothing, economic sabotage as a weapon of war, and the thin line between state violence and organized crime does not require a great deal of imaginative leaping to land in 2026. Knight wrote a period piece. Current events wrote the commentary.

Variety's Guy Lodge called it "dutiful fan service" elevated by Murphy's stillness and George Steel's film-shot cinematography, noting that "heroism has always had a sadistic streak" in this world. [2] He is right. What makes the film land is not that it is subtle -- it is not -- but that it treats its anti-fascist conviction as something other than decoration.

The boys are back in town. So, unfortunately, is everything they were fighting.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London