Film Review – By Any Means (2026)

      By Any Means, 2026.

      Directed by Elegance Bratton.

      Starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Wahlberg, Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, LisaGay Hamilton, LaChanze, Ethan Embry, David Strathairn, and Giancarlo Esposito.

      SYNOPSIS:

      A infamous mafia hitman partners with a young Black FBI agent to investigate the murders of civil rights leaders in Mississippi during 1966.

      Simultaneously exaggerated and hollow, by the conclusion of Elegance Bratton’s By Any Means, one might easily forget it is supposedly inspired by real events. The film immerses itself in the dramatics of its title as Mark Wahlberg’s New Yorker mafia informant, Gregory Scarpa, enjoys unrestricted freedom in 1960s Mississippi while assisting FBI agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) – a rather fictional character given the limited information on the actual individuals involved – in a perilous investigation of the Ku Klux Klan and identifying the murderers of NAACP President Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito). The film largely serves as a 100-minute discomforting rationale for extreme violence as the sole path to peace.

      To be clear, racists and members of the KKK certainly deserve whatever consequences come their way, but the shallow screenplay by Sascha Penn (who appears white and is clearly outmatched by a narrative this complex regarding justice, punishment, revenge, and racial dynamics between the main characters) sits awkwardly between borderline exploitation and genuine storytelling. Instead, it ends up trying to satisfy both avenues but fails to do either effectively.

      From the start, the film feels off, not solely because of Mark Wahlberg’s unconvincing prosthetic nose. Watching Gregory Scarpa cheerfully discuss baseball while preparing to violently assault a racist with information about three missing civil rights activists – serves as a quick prologue showing that, for better or worse, his brutal methods work – resembles a deranged cartoon. There’s little character depth to engage with; Gregory Scarpa is portrayed more like a typical Mark Wahlberg character than the disturbing presence one might expect, akin to how the late Ray Liotta might have approached this role. While it is somewhat unintentionally humorous to see Wahlberg's usual performance of savagely attacking a racist, the overall execution lacks conviction.

      It's noteworthy that the filmmakers render the fictional Wayne Strider more intriguing than the historical figure, who had a family and became an informant. Strider, having found love in Chicago and married Allison (Nicole Beharie), returns to Mississippi, feeling that there’s significant work to do in his profession. Shortly after, the KKK, angered by Vernon Dahmer’s offer to cover poll taxes for Black voters, surround his house and incinerate it along with him (a well-executed climactic scene).

      This leads law enforcement to reintroduce Gregory Scarpa, who wishes to withdraw from this lifestyle. How he initially became an informant and the blackmail the FBI holds over him could have constituted its own compelling story had it explored the individual behind the violent facade. Instead, By Any Means plays out as a grim and gritty mismatched buddy procedural lacking an engaging mystery (spoiler alert: the murderers are merely hicks) set in the Deep South, with the film seeming intent only on repeatedly conveying that Wayne's resolve to adhere to the law will lead him nowhere. To its credit, the violence is sometimes appropriately unpleasant, visceral, and unyielding in extracting information from racists.

      One could argue that Wayne's eventual shift towards Scarpa's mentality frames the film as a tragedy, yet the characterization is so superficial that it may suggest, uncomfortably, that the white man's perspective on race relations is correct (at one moment, he trivializes Martin Luther King Jr. while acknowledging some merit in Malcolm X's rhetoric). Furthermore, the unsettling reality is that, 60 years later, certain segments of society have become increasingly casual in their racism, indicating that violence has not resolved the underlying issues. It's important to note that there’s no clear solution to combating rampant racism. The crux is that By Any Means, much like Scarpa, finds more satisfaction in depicting violence than in delivering any meaningful message.

      Reaching its climax with yet another torture scene, little is learned about either Wayne or Scarpa. While Wayne's motivations grow more urgent and personal as he grapples with the law and the dangers presented by both the system and the racist individuals, that inner conflict resonates, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II sells it well. The rest of By Any Means remains stubbornly thickheaded, paralleling Scarpa, concluding with a song of the same title in the end credits, with its writer providing a more substantial revelation than anything else in the film. Now there is someone determined to achieve something by any means