BY ANY MEANS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Elegance Bratton
Stars: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Wahlberg, Giancarlo Esposito, Ethan Embry, Nicole Beharie, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas, Lisa Gay Hamilton, LaChanze.
This luridly violent, brutal and gritty crime drama is set against the turbulent backdrop of Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the systemic racial injustice of the era, and it once again proves that often fact is stranger than fiction.
In the mid-60s the Ku Klux Klan was terrorising black communities in Mississippi. With the disappearance of three young civil rights activists who ventured into Mississippi to try and help African-Americans enrol for the vote the FBI took some unusual steps to investigate. Special agent Moore (David Strathairn) sent in mob enforcer and notorious hitman turned FBI informant Greg Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg) to get answers. Scarpa was successful in beating vital information out of a suspect.
But the stakes were raised when Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito), a leading civil rights activist, was murdered by the KKK, because of his work in trying to recruit African American voters. The FBI send in African-American FBI agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, from Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, etc) to investigate. He had worked for the Bureau in Chicago before returning home to Hattiesberg in Mississippi.
In an “off the books” assignment, Strider is sent to Mississippi along with Scarpa to try and uncover the truth in a region where most people were reluctant to trust or even talk to the authorities. Sam Bowers (Etham Embry), the Imperial Wizard of The Ku Klux Klan, became the focus of their investigation. While Strider was bound by the rules of the FBI Scarpa felt no such compunction and used more brutal interrogation techniques including torture and a baseball bat to elicit information.
The odd couple pairing between Wahlberg and Abdul-Mateen II drives the film, and the pair share a prickly chemistry. Strider’s character is a fictitious creation albeit based on the real-life agent who accompanied Scarpa during the investigation. However, it is hard to accept the dramatic change that Strider’s character undergoes and he transforms from idealistic, by-the-book agent to more a vigilante seeking justice by any means. However, Wahlberg effortlessly captures Scarpa’s volatile nature, and although hidden under some prosthetic makeup effects, he revels in his bad boy role here. He bears a permanent smirk and constantly chews on a toothpick and swears profusely.
Nicole Beharie adds strong support as Strider’s wife Allison, although she is given little to do, while Josh Lucas appears briefly as another FBI special agent.
Written by Sascha Penn (Creed II, etc) and directed by Elegance Bratton (the drama The Inspection, etc) By Any Means is a gritty, brutal and even visually ugly crime drama and much of the violence is quite graphic and gratuitous and unflinching. It is also tonally uneven. By Any Means captures this dark period in American history, and although it is set in the same time frame as Mississippi Burning it comes across inferior to Alan Parker’s superior 1988 drama. It sometimes smacks of the elements of the blaxploitation genre that was popular in the late 70s and 80s.
The film takes its title from a famous quote from civil rights activist and prominent Muslim Malcolm X, who advocated for black empowerment.
★★☆
