By Any Means (Paramount/Skydance)

Originally posted 9/3/2026

“I’m not your driver, I’m your Handler.”

By Any Means is what you get if the 1967 Norman Jewison perennial classic, In the Heat of the Night, and Alan Parker’s 1988 feature Mississippi Burning had a baby. Then that baby grows up, he gets swole, and all he wants to do is take it to the Klan with virtuous wrath, bare knuckles, baseball bats, and lots (and lots) of guns. This is an ugly film shining a bright light on an ugly period of American history that we thought we’d outgrown, but as current events vividly display, clearly the cyclic rot of the Nation’s original sin has reared its endemic head once again. This weirdly imaginary story is (very) loosely based on real people and real events. By Any Means tells that tale with verve and passion.

“We go in, we ask a few questions, we have a little fun, we get some information.”

By Any Means is a 2026 Paramount/Skydance film directed by Elegance Bratton from a story written by Sascha Penn. Mark Wahlberg leads an ensemble cast including Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, Lisa Gay Hamilton, LaChanze, David Straithirn, and Giancarlo Esposito.

“You got a gun; you got a badge. When are you gonna get some balls, Jackie?”

It is August,1964. In Mississippi, Brooklyn-based hitman Greg Scarpa (Wahlberg) is beating answers out of a young associate of the White Knights of the Klan. “Where the bodies at, Eddie?” He repeats between throwing thudding punches into the flanks of the bound yobbo. Getting nowhere, he goes for his bat, shattering several bones in the boy’s knee before the kid breaks, begs for mercy, and tells Scarpa exactly what he needs to hear. He rings up the Department and reports in. Then he smashes the boy’s other knee.

It is January,1966. Wealthy entrepreneur Vernon Dahmer (Esposito) decides to generously support the citizens of Hattiesburg, MS, that helped him earn his fortune. Dahmer is keenly interested in all Black people exercising their newly won right to vote. He sets up voting drives and offers to pay the poll tax for the folks who can’t afford it. This raises the ire of the local Klan members who gather at the (Whites Only!) Sambo Toy Company, where they plan their retribution.

After requesting a transfer from Chicago to his hometown in Mississippi, FBI agent Wayne Strider (Abdul-Mateen II) is dissatisfied with his lot in life. Like T.E. Lawrence in the beginning of David Lean’s magnificent 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, he feels like he’s wasting his talents in the backroom files his racist superiors have relegated him to despite his skills as an investigator.

Strider is invited to the Dahmer’s for dinner, where they express how proud they are that he’s returned to his childhood home. No one from their part of town was expecting to get their own Eliot Ness. Later that night, the house is showered with bullets and firebombed by Klan soldiers. In an inventive first-person sequence, Dahmer returns fire with an impressive array of weapons, but it’s too late. The house is lost. His wife and child make it out unscathed; Vernon escapes as well, but the flames and the smoke overwhelm him.

When the news hits Washington of more prominent civil rights activist murders, President Johnson orders action; Hoover demands results. Days go by. The Bureau’s boys hit a brick wall. No one wants to testify. No one trusts the white fellas in black suits and no one wants to cross the Klan.

The next morning, Wayne is called to see his superiors. They have work for him. He is to meet an FBI asset from New York named Scarpa at a motel, act as his handler, and assist him in his endeavors. They make it clear he is not to discuss this mission with anyone. This job is off-the-books. Strider accepts.

He finds the musclebound Italian toying with a prostitute. After assuring the incredulous mobster that he is, in fact, a federal agent, they get underway. While driving through an ink-dark night on an empty road, they begin to get to know one another. Red lights flash through the gloom and a siren whines. A sheriff deputy’s car is behind them. Strider pulls over. The deputy approaches, the garish beam of his flashlight blinding the agent. He shows his badge and credentials, but the deputy doesn’t believe them. Gun trained, he orders Wayne out of the car, accusing him of impersonating an FBI agent.

Loud barks of gunfire echo through the quiet countryside. To Strider’s astonishment, Greg perforates the police officer with his Colt M1911 and the deputy collapses to the asphalt. For a moment, Strider panics. He’s in MISSISSIPPI. He’s Black. He’s an FBI guy. The Yankee he’s with just cut down a cop. Forget the Dahmer investigation; he’s doomed. The Klan will call for vengeance. Wayne will be lucky if he doesn’t get strung up.

Can Strider and Scarpa stay a step ahead of the lynch mobs? Can Greg really punch his way to the truth? Will anyone testify on the record? If they find the murderers, will it make a difference? If Wayne and Greg find the murderers, will they survive? Please see By Any Means to find out.

“They came for me and my wife. Get your shit and get in the fucking car.”

In By Any Means, the two protagonists are a City Mouse and a Country Mouse. Though he is a G-Man out of Chicago, Strider is from Mississippi, and the burly, Bensonhurst-born, greasy assassin Greg might as well have “City-Slicker” tattooed on his forehead. The uptight and by-the-book agent cannot fathom how the chaotic and violence-prone Scarpa functions in any of his methodical systems and protocols. In Chicago, he ran cases. Upon his return to Mississippi, Strider is startled by the reaction his FBI badge evokes when paired with his skin but soon slips back into Hattiesburg’s prickly and segregated rhythms like sliding into a well-worn but uncomfortable shoe.

The racial dynamic between the protagonists runs parallel to the crumbling racist domain and its hooded revanchists’ brushes with the black-suited agents representing Hoover’s heavy hand as well as the looming modern world encroaching upon their demesne. They just don’t understand each other at all at first, and every subsequent interaction is another piercing of the soap-thin and bitter-tasting veil between worlds that obfuscates perception. However, the more Strider and Scarpa work together, the more a grudging respect grows between the two, whereas the more the Klan learns about the efforts of the Bureau to dig out Dahmer’s murderers the more they’re determined to despise the meddling Feds and their blasted agents.

The pitch of By Any Means feels lifted from the long-running Marvel Comics anthology series, What If?: “Though they didn’t meet until 1980, what if FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio, handler of mob hitman turned asset Greg Scarpa, travelled back in time to the 1960’s and worked with the killer-for-hire (who was famous within the bureau for beating a Klan goon until the mug ratted out the location of the bodies of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman in 1964), when he was again sent to Mississippi from NY to solve a second civil rights-related murder, that of real-life organizer, Vernon Dahmer? Oh, and what if DeVecchio was Black (and had a different name).” The fictional spin of the story makes it feel bizarre and somewhat fantastic when one realizes the bare bones the plot is built off comes from the musings and memoirs of murderers. This sort of deflates the potency of political statements made and favors the power of the spectacle.

There’s a lot of driving. There’s a lot of talking. Wahlberg gets most of the good lines. Giancarlo Esposito is a scene-stealer in the brief moments he has on camera. Unfortunately, most of the other characters aren’t particularly fleshed out to the point of not having names in the press or promotional materials. Nicole Behaire turns Strider’s wife into a formidable firecracker, imbuing what could’ve been a forgettable role with some dash and dynamism.

55-year-old Wahlberg is DIESEL. His bulges are bulging. He’s HUGE. His savage interrogation scenes are bathed in sepia tones that do not disguise the depravity of the scenes or their carnage. Scarpa’s reputation rightly proceeds him, and after initial mockery, the fearsome White Knights tremble at the approach of “That guy from Brooklyn”.

Abdul-Mateen’s usual uncanny range and ebullient emotional expressiveness is muted here. His Strider runs a somewhat limited gamut that starts with him being overwhelmed, then wistful, weeping, scared, stoic, scared again, then he displays an anger which builds to a furious incandescence of wrath that rains fire all over the climax.

This reviewer is skeptical that accurate intelligence can be obtained through torture, and it is unfortunate that the trope of “beating the truth” out of someone runs so deep in American pop culture. There are other causes to be sure, but this reviewer chalks a good chunk of the trend up to 9 seasons of Fox’s 24 saturating the airwaves starting in 2001. Two of the scenes bookend the film. They make for unpleasant viewing.

With quotes ripped from history turned to monologues like “We took this land first. We are God’s chosen people. For the principles of pure Americanism!”, Bratton makes it clear MAGA and the Klan are on the same page, reading from the same books, singing the same hymns and largely inspired to reach the same goals. As one would expect, the ending is a downer. Though individuals pay a certain price, the Klan itself as an organization is unscathed. It lives on today. It marches through our soiled Capitol building proudly displaying the stars and bars.

For a fleeting moment, this reviewer would’ve liked an ending that was as absurd as the premise of the film, something like an 80’s-style action film closing with Wahlberg and Abdul-Mateen II walking away as the state of Mississippi explodes in an orange fireball over their shoulders. However, the bitter ending reflects reality in a way that a good chunk of the movie strives to, despite the truth-bending, entertainment-based premise. By Any Means is not a great film, but Bratton’s sophomore effort is an ambitious movie from a talented director with something to say. The film is a little clumsy, but for the most part it’s successful. It should not be missed.

By Any Means is in theatres 9/4/2026.

https://fanboyfactor.com/2026/09/by-any-means-is-messy-brutal-and-has-something-to-say/