Review: 'By Any Means' Blends Civil Rights History with Familiar Crime Thriller Beats
Elegance Bratton's 'By Any Means' pairs a Black FBI agent with a mob hitman to investigate the murder of civil rights activists in 1966 Mississippi. The film, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg, struggles to reconcile its historical weight with conventional genre elements. It delivers some tense moments but ultimately feels uneven.
The film is adapted from a Black List script by Sascha Penn, drawing on the real-life partnership between Brooklyn mobster Gregory Scarpa and a fictionalized Black FBI agent. Set in January 1966, it centers on the Klan firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer's home, a crime that prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to demand federal action. Director Elegance Bratton, known for *The Inspection*, frames the story around the tension between Strider's idealism and Scarpa's brutal pragmatism.
The production notably omits the FBI's contemporaneous surveillance of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, a choice that narrows the historical lens. Supporting cast includes Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, and LisaGay Hamilton, with Giancarlo Esposito appearing briefly as Dahmer. The film runs 107 minutes and carries an R rating.
This film could prompt viewers to reconsider how Hollywood packages civil rights history within familiar genre structures. By pairing a Black agent with a white mob enforcer, it may spark conversations about racial dynamics in law enforcement and the compromises required to achieve justice. Audiences interested in the era may find the historical omissions notable, potentially encouraging further research into the FBI's complex relationship with the civil rights movement.