IR Film Review: BY ANY MEANS [Paramount]
Doing a thriller/civil rights drama is always a tricky sell in terms of audiences but also an important story to tell while also making it tense and edgy and adding entertainment value....not a small order. “By Any Means” pairs Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of "Aquaman" fame as an FBI agent named Strider who returns to Mississippi after a stint in Chicago trying to some good in the Deep South in 1966. When a local black businessman named Dahmer (played with humbling fierceness by Giancarlo Esposito) is murdered, the Feds brings in an external consultant in Greg Scarpa Jr. allegedly a hitman for one of the mafia families at the time. Mark Wahlberg takes on this character with gusto never judging him but playing him straight, warts and all with a suave streak and a nasty follow through. Like all good buddy pictures per se they have to learn to tolerate each other and see what they can each bring to the table. This is Wahlberg’s best performance in years because the physicality and the prosthetics he uses matches the machismo and gut charm. This is not a good guy but he is a means to an end…and he enjoys his work. Wahlberg gets that and leans into it.
The film has a lot of exec producers so it must have taken a house to get the film finance but that intensity filters through. Terence Blanchard’s score also gives that timeliness and timelessness. Director Elegance Bratton also shows an assured hand and never flinches which towards the end is what the film needs. In terms of the timeline, hopefully "Sinners" gave this film a boost. That film needed genre to help it out in a way but its most powerful elements had nothing to do with vampires. That was just the wrapping. This film doesn’t need the wrapping and both actors in Abdul-Mateen and Wahlberg keep it steady along by some very focused performances by Nicole Beharie as Strider’s wife and the aforementioned Esposito. Josh Lucas and David Strathairn add a little prestige as the white men inside the Jackson [Mississippi] FBI office. The movie is based on real events but still fictionalized so the consequences of some of the sequences which would have likely warranted more investigation in the day are given dramatic license. That said, it serves the story and delivers without lessening the impact. Again, what could be tricky narrative material is delivered with both a flair and an edge. 85%/B/B+
By Tim Wassberg
