By any means (2026) Mississippi Burning Meets Goodfellas
A notorious mafia hitman and a young Black FBI agent team up to investigate the murders of civil rights leaders in 1966 Mississippi.
There are buddy movies, and then there are partnerships that look as though somebody reached into two entirely different boxes of cereal and hoped the prizes wouldn’t murder each other.
By Any Means pairs a principled young Black FBI agent with Gregory Scarpa, a notorious Mafia hitman whose approach to due process seems to be checking whether the suspect still has a pulse. One man believes in procedure, discipline and the institution. The other believes a loaded gun is a perfectly acceptable conversation starter. Naturally, the federal government decides these two should take a road trip through 1966 Mississippi.
What could possibly go wrong?
The movie is inspired by allegations surrounding the real Scarpa, a Colombo crime-family captain and FBI informant who was reportedly brought into Mississippi when conventional investigative methods were getting nowhere. That true-story connection immediately grabbed me. It is difficult to invent anything stranger than the American government quietly borrowing a Mafia killer to investigate the Ku Klux Klan. That sounds less like law enforcement and more like Satan subcontracting to a church choir.
Mark Wahlberg plays Scarpa as a man who could become dangerous because somebody stirred his coffee counterclockwise. He is menacing, unpredictable and sometimes darkly funny, but Wahlberg avoids turning him into a lovable gangster mascot. This is not Tony Soprano selling breakfast cereal. Scarpa is useful because he is frightening, and frightening because you never completely know where his limits are—or whether he bothered installing any.
Wahlberg gives the character a volatile energy that adds another layer to his career. At certain moments he is chillingly controlled; at others he appears one misplaced adjective away from redecorating the room with somebody’s dental work. It is a convincing performance, even when his prosthetic nose threatens to file for separate billing.
I understand that the makeup was intended to make Wahlberg resemble the real Gregory Scarpa. Mission accomplished, I suppose, but during some close-ups I stopped watching the character and began studying the engineering. That nose doesn’t enter a room with Wahlberg. It arrives several seconds earlier, checks the exits and signals that the rest of his face may proceed.
Fortunately, the movie’s central relationship is strong enough to survive the nasal insurgency.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gives the story its moral centre as Wayne Strider, a fictional composite of Black FBI agents from the period. Strider begins as a disciplined man who believes the law can still accomplish justice if honourable people faithfully serve it. Scarpa regards that belief the way a shark regards water wings.
Watching these two circle one another is more interesting than simply watching them trade insults. Strider is repulsed by Scarpa’s methods, while Scarpa sees Strider’s restraint as a luxury afforded to people who have never met an enemy completely immune to decency. Their conflict gradually becomes something deeper: Can a good man use evil methods without those methods changing him? And can a violent man ever be serving justice, or is justice merely giving him a socially acceptable target?
The movie does not hand us easy answers tied up with a commemorative ribbon. Different characters confront variations of the same dilemma. Some rise when tested. Others fold like a lawn chair at a family reunion. The strongest moments come when the calm characters discover their capacity for violence and the violent characters begin to feel morally welcome.
Giancarlo Esposito delivers the standout supporting performance as civil-rights leader Vernon Dahmer. His pivotal sequence involving the attack on Dahmer’s home is riveting, frighteningly convincing and emotionally devastating. Esposito brings dignity and humanity to the part without making Dahmer feel like a historical monument that learned to speak. He feels like a husband, father and community leader whose courage has an actual cost.
The period detail is equally impressive. The old cars naturally receive most of the attention because vintage automobiles are the one museum exhibit men will happily examine for three hours. However, the smaller touches matter just as much: calendars, furniture, clothing, signs and board games quietly build the world without hopping in front of the camera and shouting, “Please notice the production budget.”
Director Elegance Bratton generally allows tension to accumulate instead of emptying the entire cinematic ammunition box during the opening act. That patience makes several suspenseful sequences considerably more effective. When violence finally arrives, it feels like the release of pressure that has been building scene by scene.
The drawback is that patience occasionally becomes loitering. Certain stretches could have been tightened without sacrificing atmosphere. Slow burns are wonderful, but eventually somebody needs to check whether the stove is actually on.
The FBI leadership characters are another weakness. Several exist mainly to enter a room, deliver instructions and disappear into the federal wallpaper. They have about as much inner life as the conference table. Considering the moral and institutional questions raised by the story, the movie could have given these officials stronger personalities and clearer motivations.
My largest reservation involves the film’s treatment of racial conflict. The history is real, horrifying and worthy of remembrance. Vernon Dahmer and others demonstrated courage that should not be forgotten merely because remembering makes modern audiences uncomfortable. There is also a legitimate liberal reading of the film: America cannot fully appreciate its progress without confronting the brutality that made such progress necessary.
I agree with the remembering. I am less convinced by Hollywood’s habit of repeatedly converting racial trauma into entertainment while underplaying how dramatically society has changed. By Any Means rarely trusts the audience to recognize evil without underlining it, circling it and firing a flare over it. The racial commentary is not irrelevant—the story could not exist without it—but subtlety occasionally goes missing and nobody bothers issuing an FBI bulletin.
A documentary might have treated the disputed history with greater precision and allowed Vernon Dahmer’s real legacy more room to breathe. A dramatic thriller inevitably simplifies people, compresses events and turns moral tragedy into something sold beside popcorn. That does not make the movie illegitimate, but it creates an uncomfortable tension the film never entirely resolves.
The violence presents a similar problem. This is unquestionably an adult movie, and much of the brutality belongs in the story. Genuine evil should not be sanitized until it resembles a disagreement at the church bake sale. Still, the camera occasionally lingers after the point has been made. Seeing blood hit the wall can tell us everything we need to know; Hollywood sometimes insists on giving the blood its own coverage, close-up and promotional tour.
Despite those objections, By Any Means succeeds as a tense historical crime thriller with two compelling lead performances and an unusually provocative moral question. What happens when lawful institutions confront people who recognize neither law nor conscience? Does justice remain justice when it hires evil to perform the work?
I came away admiring the movie more than loving it. Wahlberg is dangerously entertaining, Abdul-Mateen gives the story its conscience, Esposito supplies its emotional weight, and the production convincingly recreates an ugly chapter of American history. The pacing drags, the message occasionally arrives carrying a megaphone, and the violence sometimes mistakes excess for impact. But the moral dilemmas linger after the credits—and any movie that keeps arguing with me after I leave the theatre has accomplished something.
My ranking: 7.0/10.
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