Butler's Cinema Scene

Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan

“Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” My rating: B- (Netflix)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The new stand-alone final episode of “Peaky Blinders” isn’t bad — just unnecessary.

The Brit series, which ran on Netflix from 2013 to 2022, was exemplary television, a crime drama and family saga that occasionally reached Shakespearean heights.  Kind of an episodic “Godfather” with a Birmingham accent.

One wonders if creator Steven Knight’s decision to add a final filmic coda to the story of the outlaw Shelby clan was prompted by the Oscar win (for “Oppenheimer”) by Cillian Murphy, whose brooding presence as the ruthless and tormented Thomas Shelby  was the show’s driving force.

Certainly it wasn’t because Knight had some sort of important story to tell. “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” feels like it was thrown together, a movie in search of a reason for being. 

Oh, the atmosphere is as brooding as ever, and Murphy is always watchable. But the whole production seems to have been glued together from a bunch of pieces Knight had lying about.

It’s World War II and the British fascist Beckett (Tim Roth at his most reprehensible) is charged with smuggling into England several million dollars in fake pound notes counterfeited by the Nazis.  The idea is to crash the economy  and bring the German conquest of Britain to a swift conclusion.

To facilitate this scheme Beckett needs the assistance of the Peaky Blinders, the crime syndicate created by Tommy Shelby but now run by his estranged son Duke (Barry Keoghan). 

Duke apparently has no patriotic sensibilities.  But his father Tommy, long retired on his country estate and haunted by the memories of the loved ones he has lost, gets wind of the plot and comes out of retirement to foil it.

That’s all you need to know.  There are several solid action sequences and the production values are top notch, but something feels off.

Mostly it’s the feeling that Tommy’s newfound love of country has been manufactured out of whole cloth.  It’s a convenient but squishy plot device.

Moreover, Knight’s screenplay (the director is Tom Harper) has Tommy doing some pretty reprehensible things.  Like murdering a British soldier on leave because he and his pals are making too much noise in Tommy’s favorite pub. Not exactly the way to prove your nationalistic bona fides.

Along the way we get some wacko diversions, like Rebecca Ferguson as the twin of Tommy’s long-dead gypsy wife.  She periodically goes into trance in which her body is inhabited by the spirit of her dead sister.  No, really.

Jorma Tommila

“SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE” My rating: C+ (Netflix)

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Sisu” was one of 2022’s guilty pleasures.

Alas, the new followup, “Sisu: Road to Revenge” mostly left me feeling guilty.

The original film was a combination of “Saving Private Ryan” and a Road Runner cartoon, with a silent Finnish commando taking out a platoon of goonish Germans in one spectacular action sequence after another.

This sequel once again features Jorma Tommila as Astami, the bearded loner whose survival skills are legendary.  The war is over and Astami (accompanied by his fluffy pooch) squares off against the Soviets who now occupy his old stomping grounds in eastern Finland.

It’s a road movie. Our hero has returned to dismantle the home he once shared with his now-deceased family so that he can rebuild on free Finnish soil.  The action takes place as he drives a flatbed truck loaded with lumber, pursued by same Russian war criminal  (Steven Lang) who murdered his family.

There are some spectacular (and, frankly, ridiculous) stunts with tanks, motorcycles and fighter planes, and a long sequence taking place on a train suggests that writer/director Jamari Hollander is well acquainted with Buster Keaton’s silent classic “The General.” 

Lang’s bad guy oozes menace.  Astami once again endures punishments that approach “Passion of the Christ” levels of torture porn.

But this time around it feels forced and phony — not that the original was realistic, but it at least radiated originality.  “Sisu: Road to Revenge” feels too calculated, too by-the-numbers.

Rami Malick, Russell Crowe

“NUREMBERG” My rating: B (Netflix)

148 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg” starts off feeling like a made-for-TV movie with an A-list cast.

But stick with it and you’ll find a historical drama that resonates with uncomfortable lessons still relevant today.

The screenplay by Vanderbilt and Jack El-Hai focuses on the war crime trials that unfolded in Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of the World War II. 

The main focus is on Herman Göring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second in command, and an American military psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), assigned to befriend and evaluate the unrepentant Nazi before his trial can proceed.

So what we’ve got here are two Oscar winners in a duel of words and ideas.  Göring is pompous, arrogant and defiant, yet still capable of charm.  Kelley finds himself fascinated by his prisoner/patient…so much so that he develops an unhealthy interest in Goring’s wife and daughter.

There’s plenty of star power orbiting around these two.  Michael Shannon plays Robert Jackson, an American jurist prosecuting the case; Richard E. Grant is his British counterpart. John Slattery is the hard-ass officer in charge of the prisoners.  Leo Woodall is the German-speaking interpreter who must assist Göring while not revealing that most members of his Jewish family died in the Holocaust.

“Nuremberg” is most effective in hammering home the idea that the rise of Naziism was not some aberration but rather a sly exploitation of the fears, foible and prejudices that still afflict the human race.

It could happen all over again.  Hell, perhaps it already has.

| Robert W. Butler