Directed by Elegance Bratton, By Any Means takes audiences into 1960s Mississippi, where a young Black FBI agent, Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), returns to his hometown and is sent undercover to investigate the murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito). As the FBI struggles to make progress, Strider finds himself working alongside Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg), a notorious Mafia hitman whose methods are about as far from the law as one can get. Inspired by the true events of anti-black racism in the 1960s, the unlikely partnership becomes the centre of a crime thriller that asks just how far someone can go in the name of justice.
From the moment Strider enters Mississippi, By Any Means makes it clear that he is fighting more than one battle. He is investigating murders, but he is also navigating a world where his very presence as a Black-G man is questioned. People repeatedly assume that he must be impersonating a government official simply because they cannot believe a Black man could hold that position.
It is a small detail, but one that speaks volumes.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars in Paramount Pictures’ “BY ANY MEANS.”
Strider believes in the institution he represents. He believes in justice, and he believes that Black Americans must be part of achieving it. As he puts it, “I believe in justice, and I believe the Negroes have to be a part in getting it.” Yet the deeper he gets into his investigation, the more he is confronted with the reality of how difficult that justice is to achieve.
The film’s historical backdrop gives those words even greater weight. Voting is not simply a political choice here. It is a fight for recognition. Dahmer frames it as, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” The statement becomes a reminder of how deliberately Black Americans were being denied a voice, including through poll taxes and other barriers to voting.
And Strider understands that Mississippi cannot remain disconnected from the rest of America forever.
“America won’t be right until Mississippi is right.”
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars in Paramount Pictures’ “BY ANY MEANS.”
That line became one of the film’s most striking reminders that the investigation is about more than solving a series of murders. It is about confronting a country that cannot claim to be just while entire communities are being denied that justice.
Then comes the film’s most fascinating contradiction: Scarpa.
Putting a young Black FBI agent beside a Mafia hitman creates an unexpectedly thrilling back-and-forth. The two men could hardly be more different. Strider believes in the law. Scarpa has little patience for it. One wants justice through the system; the other knows exactly how to operate outside it.
And yet, they are working toward the same goal.
Their partnership gives By Any Means much of its energy and dark humour. Their clashes bring some welcome light humour to an otherwise heavy story, while their contrasting approaches constantly raise the question of where justice ends and vengeance begins.
That question becomes even more complicated because we know the story is inspired by real events. Gregory Scarpa really did have a connection to the FBI and travelled to Mississippi during the civil-rights era, helping authorities locate the bodies of murdered civil-rights workers.
Mark Wahlberg stars in Paramount Pictures’ “BY ANY MEANS.”
Knowing that makes the film’s unlikely premise feel even more unsettling.
By Any Means is ultimately less interested in presenting justice as something simple and more interested in asking what happens when the system designed to deliver it fails. How much can someone compromise before the pursuit of justice becomes something else entirely?
Strider begins with faith in the law. Scarpa begins without it. Somewhere between them, the film finds its tension.
And perhaps that is what makes the title By Any Means so fitting. Because sometimes the hardest question isn’t whether justice will be served. It is what people are willing to become to make sure that it is.
By Any Means is a tense, compelling historical crime thriller anchored by the unlikely chemistry between Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg. Beneath its violence and intensity is a story about racism, justice, courage and the uncomfortable reality of fighting for what is right when the system itself is failing the people who need it most.
Justice is coming. And it’s bringing backup. By Any Means hits theatres September 4.
