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In 1960s Mississippi, a young Black FBI agent is assigned to investigate a wave of killings targeting civil-rights leaders. He carries federal authority, but a badge offers limited protection in communities where racial violence is organised, witnesses are frightened and some officials have little interest in exposing the killers.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays FBI agent Wayne Strider. His investigation takes an extraordinary turn when he is ordered to work with Gregory Scarpa, a notorious Mafia enforcer portrayed by Mark Wahlberg.
Scarpa does not respect the boundaries that govern federal agents. He understands threats, intimidation and violence, and he is willing to use methods that Strider cannot officially approve. Yet those methods may be the only ones capable of breaking through a system designed to protect the guilty.
By Any Means builds its story around that uncomfortable partnership. Strider wants justice, while Scarpa understands vengeance. As the investigation becomes more dangerous, the line separating those two ideas begins to disappear.
The investigation begins in a hostile Mississippi
Strider is sent into an environment where solving a murder requires more than finding physical evidence.
The people responsible for attacking civil-rights leaders are not operating like isolated criminals. They benefit from fear, silence and racial power structures that make witnesses reluctant to speak. Even when evidence exists, bringing the killers into court may require cooperation from institutions that have repeatedly failed the victims.
Strider must investigate while being watched by people who resent his presence and authority. As a Black federal agent working in the South during the 1960s, he also faces dangers that his white colleagues may never have to consider.
The assignment places him between two responsibilities. He must follow federal procedure, but he has also been sent to obtain justice for people who have already learned that procedure does not always protect them.
That contradiction becomes impossible to ignore when Gregory Scarpa enters the investigation.
Why does the FBI work with Gregory Scarpa?
Scarpa is the opposite of a conventional law-enforcement partner.
He is a real-life figure associated with New York’s Colombo crime family who also served as an FBI informant. The film presents him as a feared Mafia hitman with access to methods and criminal knowledge the Bureau cannot publicly use.
The partnership gives Strider something he desperately needs: a man who is not intimidated by the people obstructing the investigation.
It also creates a serious moral problem.
Scarpa is not motivated by respect for civil rights or trust in the justice system. Violence is part of the world he understands. Once he becomes involved, Strider cannot be certain whether Scarpa is helping to solve the case or using the assignment to satisfy his own appetite for punishment.
The agent must therefore control a partner who does not recognise his authority and may be more dangerous than some of the people they are pursuing.
Scarpa, meanwhile, must work beside a man whose badge represents rules he normally avoids. Their alliance does not erase the differences between them. It places those differences inside the same car, investigation and deadly pursuit.
Justice and vengeance begin to resemble each other
The title By Any Means describes the central temptation confronting Strider.
If the normal legal process cannot stop men who murder civil-rights leaders, how far should an investigator go to obtain justice? Can he accept information produced through threats? Can he benefit from Scarpa’s violence while claiming that he remains separate from it?
Scarpa offers immediate action. Strider represents accountability.
Neither approach is presented as simple. Procedure without courage can become an excuse for inaction, but power without restraint can create another form of injustice.
The deeper danger is that Strider may begin to admire Scarpa’s effectiveness. Every result achieved outside the law makes the official process appear weaker. The closer they move toward the killers, the harder it becomes for Strider to decide whether he is using Scarpa or becoming dependent on him.
Scarpa faces a different question. A man who has spent his life killing for criminal interests is suddenly fighting people whose actions are genuinely monstrous. That does not make him honourable, but it gives his violence a target audiences may want to see punished.
The film’s challenge is allowing viewers to understand that satisfaction without confusing Scarpa’s usefulness with redemption.
Vernon Dahmer and the human cost of the story
Giancarlo Esposito portrays Vernon Dahmer, a real Mississippi civil-rights leader who helped Black residents register to vote.
Dahmer was murdered in January 1966 after members of the Ku Klux Klan attacked and burned his family’s home. His inclusion gives the film a human centre beyond the unusual partnership between Strider and Scarpa.
These crimes are not merely clues designed to move a thriller forward. They affected families and communities already living under constant threat.
Director Elegance Bratton has said the film is intended to be entertaining without treating the history as a classroom lesson. That balance will require care. The revenge-thriller structure can give audiences a forceful confrontation with racist violence, but the victims cannot exist only to justify exciting scenes of retaliation.
Their lives and work must matter before the film depicts what was done to them.
Is By Any Means completely true?
Paramount describes By Any Means as based on a true story, but viewers should not treat every scene as a literal historical record.
Gregory Scarpa was a real Mafia figure and FBI informant. Vernon Dahmer was a real civil-rights leader murdered by Klansmen in Mississippi. The film draws upon the FBI’s controversial use of criminals and informants during civil-rights investigations.
However, feature films often combine events, condense timelines and create composite characters. The exact conversations, confrontations and structure of Strider and Scarpa’s partnership have been dramatised for the screen.
That distinction matters because the film deals with real victims and a troubled period of American history. Its historical foundation gives the thriller greater weight, but it does not automatically make every sequence documentary evidence.
Viewers interested in the complete history should use the film as a starting point and consult historical records separately.
Mark Wahlberg as Gregory Scarpa
Mark Wahlberg appears heavily transformed as Scarpa, wearing longer hair, tinted glasses and facial prosthetics.
The physical change is only part of the performance required. Scarpa must be frightening enough for his reputation to feel credible, yet controlled enough for viewers to understand why the FBI believes it can work with him.
He cannot become a misunderstood hero. The tension comes from knowing that the man helping Strider has committed serious crimes of his own.
Scarpa’s children, Gregory Scarpa Jr. and Linda Scarpa, served as advisers on the production. Their involvement may help the film portray the difference between Scarpa’s private family life and his violent criminal identity without excusing either side.
Abdul-Mateen has the more difficult moral position. Strider must show anger at the system, distrust of Scarpa and determination to finish the investigation without appearing naïve about the danger surrounding him.
The film will depend heavily on the conflict between their performances.
The cast and filmmakers
Elegance Bratton directs By Any Means after making his narrative-feature debut with The Inspection. Sascha Penn wrote the screenplay.
The cast includes:
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as FBI agent Wayne Strider
Mark Wahlberg as Gregory Scarpa
Giancarlo Esposito as Vernon Dahmer
Nicole Beharie
Josh Lucas
David Strathairn
Ethan Embry
LisaGay Hamilton
LaChanze
The film carries an R rating for violence, bloody images and pervasive language. Its reported running time is approximately one hour and 47 minutes.
Who should watch By Any Means?
The film should appeal to viewers interested in:
Historical crime thrillers
Stories about unlikely investigative partnerships
Films examining racism and institutional failure
Revenge dramas with difficult moral choices
Mark Wahlberg and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
True-story-inspired films that mix history with action
The subject matter includes racist violence, murder and the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Viewers looking for light entertainment should approach it carefully.
Flicklevel story outlook
By Any Means has a striking premise because neither of its central men can complete the investigation alone.
Strider has legal authority but operates inside a system with limits. Scarpa has the capacity for violence but no legitimate claim to justice. Their alliance may achieve what conventional methods cannot, but every success threatens to corrupt the purpose of the investigation.
The film will work if it refuses to provide an easy answer. Scarpa should not become heroic simply because he targets worse men, and Strider should not lose his moral intelligence merely to make the action more satisfying.
The real tension lies in watching an honourable investigator consider how much of himself he is prepared to sacrifice when lawful institutions fail the people they were created to protect.
By Any Means opens in United States cinemas on September 4, 2026. Nigerian and other regional dates should be confirmed through local cinema listings.
Trusted sources: Paramount Pictures | Entertainment Weekly’s cast and filmmaker interview | U.S. Justice Department report on Gregory Scarpa’s FBI relationship