'By Any Means' review: Wahlberg and Abdul-Mateen make a compelling crime-fighting duo
- Nate Adams
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Getting unceremoniously dumped into theaters over Labor Day weekend with little to no marketing suggested that Elegance Bratton’s “By Any Means” might be a turkey. What arrives is far from that. You admittedly have to get past the glaring elephant in the room, which is the prosthetic nose Mark Wahlberg wears to play real-life Mafia hitman Greg Scarpa. Between this and the bald cap he sported in “Flight Risk,” Wahlberg certainly seems eager to disappear beneath some questionable makeup. Still, “By Any Means” finds a compelling hook in its unlikely pairing and leans confidently into the buddy-cop formula that defined a wide range of 1980s and 1990s cinema, including “Lethal Weapon,” “48 Hrs.” and “Rush Hour.” With Wahlberg and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stepping up to the plate, the two stars enliven this historically inspired thriller even when it takes considerable liberties with the truth.
Set against the racial and political violence of the deep south in 1966, the film stars Abdul-Mateen as Wayne Strider, one of only a handful of Black federal agents working for the FBI at the time. When the bureau encounters resistance from local authorities and pressure from Washington, Strider is forced to team up with his polar opposite: Scarpa, a New York Mafia hitman brought in to operate off the books, crack a few skulls and obtain results through methods no legitimate agent could publicly endorse. Together, they must cross racial, cultural and moral barriers while searching for answers in an environment where nearly every institution is working against them.
Their assignment is to uncover those responsible for the firebombing that murdered Mississippi NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, played by Giancarlo Esposito. With the FBI unable to generate any meaningful leads, Scarpa and his shoot-first, ask-questions-later mentality are unleashed on the investigation. The Ku Klux Klan’s fingerprints are naturally all over the crime, and the pair are essentially given free rein to pursue justice by any means necessary. That includes baseball bats to the kneecaps, brutal interrogations and even cold-blooded murder.
Bratton and screenwriter Sascha Penn must continually reckon with the humanity of these men against both the brutality of the Klan and the crimes they commit in response. The movie never pretends Scarpa is anything other than a deeply dangerous man, but Wahlberg brings enough swagger, humor and volatility to make him an undeniably entertaining presence. Even beneath the heavy makeup, he reminds audiences that he can still dial up his charisma when the material gives him something substantial to play.
Abdul-Mateen counters him with a quieter and more firmly controlled performance. Wayne Strider is a fictional stand-in for the unnamed Black FBI agent mentioned in records of the investigation, meaning the actor is tasked with building a complete character from limited historical material. He handles that challenge through a slow burn, gradually allowing Strider’s composure and faith in the system to erode as he witnesses how little that system is willing to do for people who look like him.
That internal conflict gives the film more weight than its pulpy packaging initially suggests. Strider begins the story believing that killing more people cannot be the answer, while Scarpa sees violence as the only language men like the Klansmen understand. A spirited conversation between the two about Malcolm X’s response to racial violence brings their competing philosophies into focus without completely resolving the moral contradiction at the movie’s center. By the finale, Scarpa’s no-holds-barred approach has forced Strider to reconsider whether justice can ever be achieved through institutions designed to deny it.
The soundtrack keeps the movie moving with songs from Nina Simone, Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield, along with an original Diane Warren number that could once again put her within reach of that elusive competitive Oscar. Just as important is the peculiar aura Wahlberg builds around Scarpa. His desire to make every member of the Klan suffer is easy to root for, but the movie never lets us forget that his methods come from a man already comfortable with cruelty. With his white tank top, heavy Brooklyn accent, mop of hair and slight beer gut, Scarpa is an abrasive, persistent force who will go to any length to obtain the answers he needs.
That makes him an effective foil for Strider, who has little choice in accepting his help while remaining deeply uneasy about what that assistance requires. Their opposites-attract dynamic keeps “By Any Means” surprisingly light and energetic without trivializing the ugliness surrounding them. Even an all-out brawl inside a moving vehicle, which leaves both men bloodied and bruised, functions as more than a burst of action. It becomes the physical manifestation of everything they have been unable to reconcile about each other.
“By Any Means” does not always probe its thornier moral questions as deeply as it could, and its willingness to reshape history into a broadly entertaining action-thriller occasionally feels uncomfortable. The buddy-cop banter and bursts of brutality can sit awkwardly beside the real suffering at the story’s foundation. Yet Bratton largely keeps those competing tones under control, delivering a propulsive piece of genre filmmaking anchored by the chemistry between Wahlberg and Abdul-Mateen.
For a movie that entered theaters with so little confidence from its distributor, “By Any Means” proves considerably more engaging than its release strategy suggests. It may simplify history and bend credibility in its pursuit of crowd-pleasing justice, but it also understands the combustible appeal of placing two fundamentally different men inside a corrupt system and watching them decide how far they are willing to go. The result is an energetic, morally complicated action-thriller that recognizes the satisfying fantasy of fighting institutional hatred while remaining just uneasy enough about the violence required to do it.
Grade: B
BY ANY MEANS is now playing in theaters.
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