By Any Means (2026) Paramount/Drama-Thriller RT: 107 minutes Rated R (violence/bloody images, pervasive language) Director: Elegance Bratton Screenplay: Sascha Penn Music: Terence Blanchard Cinematography: Ante Cheng Release date: September 4, 2026 (US) Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, David Strathairn, Giancarlo Esposito, LisaGay Hamilton, LaChanze, Ethan Embry, Will Brittain, Alanna Masterson.
Rating: ** ½
By Any Means is a movie constantly at war with itself. It can’t decide if it wants to be a violent exploitation flick or a serious drama about racism. As a result, it always feels off balance. This might explain why it didn’t receive a more prestigious fall release date.
Who remembers the excellent 1988 film Mississippi Burning starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe? It was about the FBI investigation into the disappearance of three civil rights activists in 1964. What the film didn’t cover was how they found the bodies. Apparently, the feds brought in a specialist of sorts to interrogate Klansmen, to make them talk. His name was Gregory Scarpa and he was a Mafia hitman turned informant. In the movie’s opening scene, we witness Scarpa (Wahlberg, The Departed) beating the information out of a witness with a baseball bat. This guy doesn’t f*** around.
Similarly, By Any Means is based on a real-life crime, the murder of civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer played here by Giancarlo Esposito (Do the Right Thing). He’s targeted by the local KKK after he publicly offers to pay the two-dollar poll tax for black voters who can’t afford it. Enter Special Agent Wayne Strider (Mateen, The Trial of the Chicago 7), an ambitious young transfer from Chicago relegated to the file room. He wants a chance to prove himself, but his boss (Strathairn, Good Night and Good Luck) just brushes him off.
Dahmer’s murder changes all that. Under pressure from the President to solve the case quickly, Scarpa is called back into action. Strider is ordered to assist him as his handler. He’s to stand back and let the mobster do things his way. The higher-ups, of course, don’t want to know anything about it. They just want results and don’t care how he gets them.
This is where By Any Means really starts to show its schizophrenic nature. It alternates between two different identities, a serious exploration of historical racism and a routine buddy actioner featuring mismatched partners. Try as he might, director Elegance Bratton (The Inspection) never finds the right balance. One moment, Strider and Scarpa are discussing Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X; the next, Scarpa is putting a gun shop owner’s head through a glass counter. It’s difficult to know how to take By Any Means as a whole.
To his credit, Bratton allows us to get to know Strider on a personal level. We often see him with his wife Allison (Beharie) who firmly believes in standing by her man even when he orders her not to for her own safety. She knows (and we know) he’s a good man. As such, he has a real problem with his partner’s methods. That is, until the case hits way, WAY too close to home. The dynamic between the two men will no doubt remind some of Green Book except that Wahlberg plays his mob guy a lot more broadly. He actually looks like a 60s caricature with the tight muscle shirts, feathered hair and flashy shades he wears everywhere even at night. Add to that a ridiculous prosthetic nose and a toothpick always hanging from his mouth, he’s like a reject from Goodfellas.
Mateen is more grounded in his depiction of Strider, a composite of multiple agents who worked with Scarpa (thought to be responsible for 60 murders). He’s a naïve, principled sort driven to the brink by all the inhumanity he witnesses. He exudes respectability in his interactions with racist cops who don’t believe for a second he outranks them. He struggles to accept the reality of his situation, that violence must be met with more violence. It goes against all of King’s teachings. Mateen delivers a finely nuanced performance.
At times, By Any Means plays more like an action movie with Scarpa playing bad cop with persons of interest. It doesn’t stop there. In one scene that would be shocking if it wasn’t shown in the trailer, he guns down a cop who poses a threat to Strider. He shoots him in cold blood right there on the highway and leaves him there. Funny thing, it’s never mentioned again. You would think a cop’s murder, especially one involving a black fed, would be a bigger issue. That’s just weird.
All in all, By Any Means is pretty good. It’s not great. Its tonal unevenness strips it of any power it might have had with a more serious approach throughout. To its credit, it’s never boring. It held my interest the whole time. I kept wondering what Scarpa was going to do next. I’d really like to see a film about his life as a mobster and FBI informant. A deep dive into his character would be absolutely fascinating only maybe cast an actor other than Wahlberg. Given what he does here, it would be impossible to take him seriously.
