No need for the fake nose, just some wise guy chemistry to elevate the period piece.
The time is 1966, and the place is Mississippi. If an African-American FBI agent got pulled over by a white cop, it’s clear he would accuse him of impersonating an agent. And it’s haunting when the KKK threatens and/or kill innocent racial people.
“By Any Means” is the latest film version of what has happened at the time, and adds a good guy and bad guy collaborating to fight a worthy cause. Not in the “48 Hours” or “Rush Hour” sense, but more in the “BlacKKKlansman” meets “Green Book” consistency, and mixed with some Joel Schumacher vibes when he directed “A Time to Kill.” This is not a perfect movie, but it has attitude and timing.
The African-American FBI agent in this story is inspired by a white FBI agent named Lindley DeVecchio, and named here as Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). And as the movie opens, he moves home with his Chicago native wife (Nicole Beharie), and is hoping for his boss (David Strathairn) to give him a shot in the big leagues. The old man knows he means business when he sees a punch mark on a filing cabinet.
When the civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito) gets murdered by the KKK, Wayne is tasked with being the handler of the mob hitman and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg distracting us with a fake nose) to find the culprits. While the agent specializes in following the law, the informant specializes in fists. Funny, I think I remember commenting on the FBI agent working with Ben Affleck’s character in “The Accountant 2” and saying: “There’s even a scene when she leaves and threatens to arrest him, but if I were him, I would have timed when she would come crawling back to him. Here, that’s almost the case.”
In “By Any Means,” Scapra saves Wayne from a racist and potentially murderous cop, but he forces him to put handcuffs on himself. In retaliation, he tells the agent that while law enforcers would pin a crime on him, because of his skin color. Who would they believe: a white passenger or a black driver? And that’s when the cuffs are taken off.
The movie was directed by Elegance Britton, who also made “The Inspection,” and written by Sascha Penn, who was also one of the writers of “Creed II.” I would say it keeps its nose to the grindstone, except the fake nose Wahlberg has to wear is distracting. I was thinking along the lines of Steve Martin forced to wear the uncomfortable long nose in “Roxanne.” At times, when we can sense when that nose has been polished thanks to the lighting.
But regardless, the actor delivers the goods with the dialogue and attitude as Scarpa. He almost reminds us of his role in “The Departed” flipping off his bad guy character in “Flight Risk.” I guess these days there’s a certain pattern where good movies like “Arthur the King” and “Father Stu” are sandwiched between bad movies like “Infinite,” “Me Time,” “Flight Risk,” and “Balls Up.” And “By Any Means” is that cream filling in the Oreo.
More credit, however, goes to Mateen II for delivering his tone and consistency as if he was having lessons from John David Washington or Mahershala Ali. Splice their qualities together, and you have the actor working hard to play his FBI agent character in such a time period. This is also his first movie role since the perfunctory “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and also his best since “Candyman.”
The following sounds corny, but you should see “By Any Means” by any means necessary. It likes to resonate with the times by altering real life figures and using them for poetic justice and diversity, while reminding us of what that period was like before Martin Luther King, Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech. Unfortunately, racism is still going on today, and we need movies like “By Any Means” to fight against it.
