'Peaky Blinders' Ratchets Up the Gloom and Black Humor

The power of the Netflix movie Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man hangs off the haunted cheekbones of Cillian Murphy, so of course it’s doing very well. The hit film functions as a final send-off to Murphy’s antihero Tommy Shelby of the long-running BBC-to-Netflix series Peaky Blinders, which became a global phenomenon. Tommy began the series as a World War I veteran returning home to the mean streets of Birmingham, England, imbued with violence and trauma and ready to channel it into heading up the Peaky Blinders, an Irish-Roma gang that eventually rules the streets as a formidable criminal enterprise that crosses over into powerful political status as well.