By Jesse Dixon
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg star as a young FBI agent and a notorious mafia hitman who join forces to investigate the murders of civil rights leaders in Mississippi in 1966. Based on a true story.
Justice, by any means necessary. The shared motto of both Strider (Abdul-Mateen) and Scarpa (Wahlberg), though they have very different ways of going about it. One’s by the books, one’s however he goddamn likes. One talks first, the other hits first. We’ve seen this before, and if you’re like me, you may have thought you knew exactly what kind of movie this was gonna be because they got Marky Mark as one of the leads. Well, that’s exactly what director Elegance Bratton wants you to think.
This is not some B-tier action/thriller about a guy who does things a little differently (with no disrespect to Jason Statham). This ain’t something you come across on Netflix and throw on to kill time. This is a real thing that happened and hasn’t stopped happening, captured very well by Bratton, who a) knows what he’s doing behind the camera and b) wants to make sure you get it. By any means necessary.
Abdul-Mateen and Wahlberg are both well cast. The former: forced to play by the rules of the United States of America but imposing enough that he can deliver when his character needs to. The latter: who, despite being on the right side of history, doesn’t make him any less of a prick. They have a good back-and-forth, with the amount of chemistry you’d expect a black FBI agent and a white mobster to have in 1966. Giancarlo Esposito is also memorable as Vernon Dahmer, a civil rights leader who dedicated his life towards recruiting Black Americans to vote, and whose murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan sets off the main narrative of this film.
Elegance Bratton, despite his name, does not hold back on the violence. Strider is set upon by many white supremacists but is initially hesitant to fight back, as he is fully aware of his position as a Black American and how every single thing he does could look to someone who wasn’t there. Scarpa, on the other hand, can’t go five minutes without beating someone to a pulp. Although all of these men are deserving of this, Scarpa is no hero. His only motivation is money; he cares not about Strider or Strider’s personal connection to the work they are doing. But he recognises evil and does what he can to make the guilty pay. By any means necessary.
Strider’s journey is interesting, particularly in the third act of the film. He does not what do what you might expect this character to do if he were in another movie. It’s a brave decision, and it’s the right one. Abdul-Mateen sells this transition very well; you understand why Stider has acted the way he has up until a certain point, and you understand and support him when he decides to take matters into his own hands, for possibly the first time in his career.
Will this film be nominated for an Oscar? Probably not, although the song over the end credits is a Diane Warren creation, Mrs Best Original Song herself. It does not matter; By Any Means is far greater in meaning than a couple of gold trophies. It is exactly the film it needs to be, and audiences must understand this to reckon with history, feel the injustice that has occurred and still occurs, and live their lives differently. By—well, you know.
By Any Means hits Australian theatres on September 3rd, 2026.