‘By Any Means’ Review: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg in a Shallow, if Occasionally Gripping, Historical Crime Thriller

In the first proper scene of By Any Means , the new picture by Elegance Bratton ( The Inspection ), a musclebound thug ( Mark Wahlberg ) looms over a man tied to a chair. The latter pleads and screams, his cries echoing through the empty warehouse; the former responds by beating him harder still with his baseball bat.

It’s a scene that plays like a thousand we’ve seen before, in a thousand other crime drama — or it would, if not for the preceding prologue. By Any Means actually opens with a black-and-white montage of news footage about the disappearance of three civil rights activists in 1964 Mississippi. Wahlberg’s Scarpa isn’t thrashing the man over some run-of-the-mill gangland dispute; he’s torturing him for intel on the whereabouts of the victims’ bodies. Related Stories TV Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Opens Up About 'Wonder Man' Un-Renewal: "It's a Lesson in Life" TV 'Wonder Man' Star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Reacts to Marvel Series Cancellation: "See You at the Emmys" By Any Means The Bottom Line An odd combo doesn't always make a successful one. Release date: Friday, Sept. 4 Cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Wahlberg, Nicole Beharie, Giancarlo Esposito, Josh Lucas, LisaGay Hamilton, LaChanze, Ethan Embry, David Strathairn Director: Elegance Bratton Screenwriter: Sascha Penn Rated R, 1 hour 47 minutes

In that light, the interrogation sequence takes on unexpected thematic resonance, teasing something richer and knottier than your run-of-the-mill potboiler. But the marriage of familiar story beats and less familiar history proves an awkward and uneasy one — albeit one still capable, here and there, of producing nasty thrills.

Sascha Penn bases his Black List script on the somewhat true story of the unlikely and initially unwilling partnership between Gregory Scarpa, a real-life Brooklyn hitman with his own Wikipedia page and everything, and Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Matteen II), a fictionalized Black FBI agent. Strider is by no means the first of his kind, as he’s always quick to point out, but he’s still enough of a rarity that Scarpa’s nickname for Strider is “Jackie Robinson.”

Strider is an idealist who was inspired to join the Bureau in the first place because, he says, “I believe in justice, and I believe Negroes have to be a part in getting it” — which only makes him more frustrated that the agency seems completely uninterested in serving the Black community. (That’s putting it lightly: The film makes no reference at all to the fact that around this time, the FBI was actively surveilling and sabotaging prominent civil rights figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Fred Hampton .)

But an exception is made in January 1966, when members of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter firebomb the home of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito, striking in a brief role). Incensed by the blatant disregard for his recently signed Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson demands someone answer for the murder. The very next day, Mississippi chief Roy (David Strathairn) summons Scarpa, an off-the-books associate willing to do the dirty work the FBI won’t, and assigns Strider to act as his handler.