Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man – ‘catnip to fans of the show’

“In the 13 years since it first slo-mo strutted onto our TV screens, ‘Peaky Blinders’ has become a cultural phenomenon,” said Dan Jolin in Empire. Now, we have a spin-off film set in the thick of the Second World War, half a decade on from where the sixth and final series left off.

Cillian Murphy reprises his role as the gangster “King of the Gypsies”, Tommy Shelby, now world-weary and “wearing cardies” as he writes his memoir in a decaying rural manor house. But then a mysterious Romany woman (Rebecca Ferguson) turns up, and persuades him to return to Birmingham, in order to bring his violent illegitimate son (Barry Keoghan) – who now runs his Peaky Blinders mob – to heel.

It’s good to see Tommy “back in his newsboy cap and three-piece suit”, “stalking the streets” and laying down the law – “or rather its opposite”. Still, the film does have the feel of an “extra-long” “Peaky Blinders” episode rather than a “standalone cinematic experience”.

This will be “catnip to fans of the show, whose mixture of gangland violence, music and spiffy tailoring always felt as close to a lifestyle brand as to a TV programme”, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. “Here it comes with some even spiffier cinematography by George Steel, who never met a morning mist he didn’t like.”

Meanwhile, as his character ponders the “perennial question” of all long-running TV characters – “Why does everyone around me have to die?” – Murphy alternates between two modes: “haunted and glowering”.

This “stylish” movie has plenty of “verve and swagger”, said Chris Bennion in The Telegraph. But it’s also curiously clinical and “unmoving”, and has the feel of a “farewell tour. Those peaks just aren’t as razor-sharp as they used to be.”