There are moments where By Any Means feels like Paramount once envisioned it as a prestige play for the Oscars.
Directed by Elegance Bratton, the drama draws on true events to expose anti-Black racism in the American South in the 1960s. In the lead role, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars as Special FBI Agent Wayne Strider, a Black G-man who’s investigating the murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito).
In scenes where he’s cajoling a witness or speaking sternly to his wife (Nicole Beharie) about the dangers they face as Black people in Mississippi, Abdul-Mateen is earnest, intense, and riveting. In these sections, it seems screenwriter Sascha Penn is channeling Chris Gerolmo’s approach to 1988’s Mississippi Burning, which centered on the murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. By Any Means also opens with the investigation of this triple homicide, though from a markedly different angle.
However, Penn then pivots to an approach that feels more Green Book, pairing Abdul-Mateen’s dignified Southern Black man with a fast-talking, impulsive white New Yorker (Mark Wahlberg, who is also a producer on the film). And while Wahlberg’s mischievous screen presence brings a levity to the content, his performance ignites a battle over what this movie means and who it’s for. And in the end, it’s a mess with a jarringly pandering political message.
By Any Means is about as historically accurate as Wolf Creek.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
“Based on a true story” is a title card that should be met with suspicion, as movies for decades (particularly horror movies) have used it as a marketing tool to juice a little more terror or anticipatory dread out of an audience. Journey with me back to 2005, when the deeply disturbing Greg McLean horror thriller Wolf Creek was marketed as being “based on true events.” The film itself simply used those events as a springboard for cinematic speculation. By Any Means works the same way.
The film presents Special FBI Agent Wayne Strider as a local man who’s come home to Mississippi to fight for equality through his work in government. So, when his friend Vernon’s home is fire-bombed, resulting in the man’s death, Strider is eager to work on the case — even if it’s off the books. His boss (David Strathairn in a role that is entirely exposition-driven) assigns him to be the handler for Gregory Scarpa, a mafia hit man and informant who busts heads for the FBI when their more traditional (i.e., legal) paths of investigation fail.
So, By Any Means opens with a montage of archival footage, establishing where the American South was in terms of KKK activity and anti-Black violence in 1964, when Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner went missing. Then, Bratton cuts to a grimy, abandoned warehouse, where a scrawny white man, badly beaten and bloody, is bound to a chair. Scarpa emerges from the shadows and pummels the man with a bat until he reveals where the activists’ remains might be found. Then a title card transports us to two years later, days before Vernon Dahmer’s murder.
When the locals, Black and white, won’t talk to the FBI — either out of fear of retribution from the KKK or because they are complicit — Scarpa is called down from Brooklyn to get the information “by any means” necessary. However, before you get too intrigued by this concept, be warned that the final title cards suggest that most of what you’ve seen is inspired by the suspicion that Scarpa may have been involved in some way alongside an “unnamed” Black agent.
This makes By Any Means only more confounding. Because with such a specious connection to reality, Penn and Bratton could have done anything. And instead, they did this.
By Any Means’ politics are confounding.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
By Any Means becomes a kind of buddy-cop movie, where Strider is the by-the-books hero, and Scarpa is the scrappy, no-rules, no-fucks-given man of action. While that premise evokes Lethal Weapon, their odd-couple energy is more reminiscent of Green Book, not only in the archetypes of the loudmouth white New Yorker and the refined Southern Black gentleman, but also in the condescending notion that the latter needs the former to educate him about the Black experience. In Green Book, it was that scene about eating fried chicken. In By Any Means, it’s Scarpa explaining to Strider why Malcolm X’s methods are better than Martin Luther King Jr.’s.
While this is a curious setup, the conversation is surface-level, using both icons of the American civil rights movement to show that Scarpa believes the best way to gain power is through violence. It’s how he rose through the ranks of the mob, and it’s a skill set that makes him valuable to the FBI. However, By Any Means only glancingly shows how white privilege distinguishes Scarpa from Strider. When a white police officer pulls the pair over, the cop is eager — giddy, even — to pull a gun on Strider, while not perceiving Scarpa as a threat. That Scarpa can shoot the cop and be confident he’ll get away with it is intriguing, but not explored in a meaningful way. Instead, By Any Means feeds into the problematic American trope of cops/feds breaking the rules in pursuit of a “good” result without question.
By Any Means seems to ask, “When the system fails, why not resort to baseball bats, guns, and vigilantism?” Notably, this is the same argument the KKK members in the movie (led by a solidly unnerving Ethan Embry) use to justify their actions. They say the system is failing them, so they’re responding with homemade bombs, gunfire, and a fiery cross. The final series of title cards lays out the aftermath of Scarpa’s speculated actions, with underwhelming legal ramifications. This makes for a muddied message about the place of violence in seeking justice.
Mark Wahlberg goes Johnny Depp in By Any Means Necessary.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Wahlberg’s chaotic charisma is compelling in By Any Means, initially making Scarpa a curious devil’s advocate that challenges Strider’s by-the-book approach. But Wahlberg is out of his depths in this role.
Now, I’m not one of those critics who think Wahlberg’s never been good. In Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, he’s perfectly employed as a Boston cop who has a foul mouth and a mean streak. In Pain & Gain, Michael Bay expertly placed him in a role of clownish masculinity that was funny and a scorching commentary on the American dream. In Fear, he was seductive as a bad boy and terrifying as an abusive boyfriend. Here, however, Wahlberg seems to be reaching for the husky gruff-but-lovable gravitas of James Gandolfini or Russell Crowe (specifically in The Nice Guys) and coming up very short.
Part of the problem is that Wahlberg’s action-hero charm is ill-suited to Scarpa, who is cocky but also scripted as a tough-as-nails New Yorker. For one, if Wahlberg’s Boston accent is meant to be a Brooklyn one, he’s failed absolutely. For another, the prosthetics applied — presumably to make him look more like the real Scarpa — are comically odd. Looking at the movie’s poster, Wahlberg is unrecognizable. Straight on, he vaguely resembles Woody Harrelson. But in profile, the nose applied is so big and so obviously false that it is constantly distracting.
Topped with a bad wig and a pot belly, Wahlberg leans in by mugging. His frown pulls deep, perhaps aiming for De Niro, but hitting Temu Florence Pugh. As I watched, agog at the nose that felt too matte and untextured to be real, I thought of Johnny Depp in Black Mass, where his pursuit of looking like mobster Whitey Bulger translated to an on-camera look so alien that it was hard to watch. As with films like Fantastic Beasts, Dark Shadows, and The Lone Ranger, Depp’s make-up felt a crutch, that paired with much mugging, was offered in place of an extraordinary performance.
Which is all to say, I could imagine a version of By Any Means that is nuanced and compelling, using the hit man as a vehicle to expose the shortcomings and loopholes in our criminal justice system. Within such a film, Strider’s embrace of rule-breaking in the third act might feel satisfying or at least exciting, rather than the predictable capitulation demanded by American movies, where the cops are always right, even when they do wrong.
As it is, Bratton makes half of a film that aches with purpose, reflected in the smoky saxophone-heavy score of Terence Blanchard. To their credit, Abdul-Mateen, Beharie, and Esposito give stirring performances that demand to be taken seriously. But Wahlberg, with his violent comic relief, undercuts any seriousness. Through him, By Any Means misses the mark as a movie with a mission, instead seeming to pander to a white audience. Scarpa’s domineering presence suggests a coddling approach meant to assure white audience members that, like the beguiling hit man, they may not be exemplary allies, but at least they’re not the KKK members actively seeking the death of their Black neighbors. Frankly, that wasn’t enough then, and it’s not enough now.
