The less you know about the real-life story behind By Any Means, a sweaty, southern crime flick from The Inspection director Elegance Bratton, the more you’ll appreciate it as a kind of classic Hollywood revenge tale. Mark Wahlberg plays notorious mafia hitman Gregory Scarpa, who, in 1966, helped the FBI find the bodies of slain civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. That case is pretty well-known, even if the FBI doesn’t want to admit anything. It says even less about the case involving Scarpa two years later: the murder of prominent voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer, played by Giancarlo Esposito. That’s what By Any Means is all about…sorta.
Sorta, because By Any Means seems to have more interest in creating a revenge fantasy, the stuff of many a blaxploitation film, than sticking to reality. That’s fine; those kinds of movies are far too rare these days. Pair up a couple of tough guys, give them a bunch of racists to beat up, and have a ball! Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Special Agent Wayne Strider, a fictional creation because there’s no evidence Scarpa ever teamed up with anybody. Striker makes the perfect kind of conflicted protagonist for this kind of story, anyway. He believes in law, order, and justice, but all it’s gotten him is being stuck behind a desk at the Mississippi field office, rather than taking part in actual cases as he did in Chicago.
That changes for Strider when he’s tasked with being Scarpa’s handler as he investigates the Dahmer killing. The two are oil and water, with Scarpa preferring to beat perps over the head with a bat than using any actual investigative techniques. This ideological divide between the partners is entertained for a little while in some fun but not particularly deep exchanges. Scarpa can respect the “by any means necessary” approach by Malcolm X, but Strider prefers Martin Luther King, Jr.
It doesn’t take long for Sascha Penn’s screenplay to dispense with the pretense and just get right down to the vengeful wish fulfillment. While Scarpa did engage in torture, pistol whippings, and other forms of violent intimidation, it’s unlikely he went on the killing spree that he and Strider engage in. They don’t just kill KKK members, but the corrupt local police aren’t spared, either. The body count is surprisingly high, not quite on a Quentin Tarantino Django Unchained level, but more than you’d expect from a movie based on real events. To be fair, By Any Means is a better movie for exaggerating things as much as it does, because who doesn’t want to watch Nazi scumbags get what they got comin’?
And who better to dish out punishment with a smile and big ol’ fake nose than Mark Wahlberg? His overacting is through the roof here, swaggering around and talking like someone auditioning to be an extra in A Bronx Tale. Wahlberg is clearly loving every second of this, and he’s by far the most enjoyable part of this movie because it doesn’t try to soften up Scarpa. He’s a bad guy doing bad shit for a good cause that he doesn’t even really believe in.
Abdul-Matteen II’s do-gooder FBI agent is kind of dull; even when he eventually goes rogue, he’s totally in Wahlberg’s shadow. Strider might be doing everything the right way, but Scarpa’s methods are getting things done a lot faster than following the rules. It’s a dilemma that is considered for a moment before Strider goes full-on Charles Bronson. By Any Means reveals some details of the real story during the credits, and they are a lot more boring than the sensational extremes the movie gave us. I’d much rather see a movie like this that dares to be provocative if it means being more entertaining than one that gives us the straight scoop.
By Any Means is in theaters now.
