NEW YORK (OSV News) – “By Any Means” (Paramount) is a morally defective fact-based drama that not only rejects Jesus’ teaching on the proper response to wrongful aggression but explicitly mocks it. Viewers of faith should, accordingly, shun the film.
Riffing on what must be one of the weirder chapters in the history of law enforcement, the movie charts the uneasy partnership of by-the-book FBI agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Mafia hitman Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg). The setting for their volatile alliance is the Mississippi of the mid-1960s, where the civil rights movement has provoked a violent backlash.
Among the victims of that reaction is local community leader Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito). Dahmer, a high-profile advocate for voting rights, succumbs to his injuries after his home is shot up and firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan.
As a result of Klan intimidation, the investigation into Dahmer’s murder stalls. So Strider’s superiors summon Scarpa, a bureau informant, to the Magnolia State and encourage him to use underworld methods to get witnesses to — and participants in — the crime to talk. Strider is instructed to facilitate this mayhem.
Much of director Elegance Bratton’s movie is devoted to the discomfort Strider initially experiences as a result of these orders. Yet Sascha Penn’s script consistently invites moviegoers to laugh at Scarpa’s unbridled amorality and eventually presents his brutal behavior as an acceptable strategy for defeating racist criminals.
In fact, the plot represents a conversion story in reverse as Scarpa gradually wins Strider over to the dark side. The latter’s slide into ethical bankruptcy ultimately culminates in the hot-tempered but cold-blooded slaying of a captive suspect, an act of retribution the audience is clearly meant to endorse as justified.
The film contains skewed values, including a benign view of vigilantism and a frivolous portrayal of adultery, much gory violence, some of it involving torture, a scene of bedroom sensuality with partial nudity, about a dozen instances each of profanity and crude talk, a couple of milder oaths and pervasive rough language. The OSV News classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
Read More Movie & Television Reviews
Copyright © 2026 OSV News
