from the series Movie Corner…
3.5 Stars Out of Five
Period Piece/ Political Thriller/ Action/ True Crime
Paramount Pictures
By HOWARD MCQUITTER II
As the summer comes to an end along with the summer blockbusters (The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, etc.) there’s usually a hiatus between the summer blockbusters and the upcoming films with Oscar aspirations.
However, early in September I decided to see By Any Means, directed by Elegance Bratton (The Inspection – 2022), a film set in 1966 in the heart of the Civil Rights struggle in the volatile state of Mississippi where murders, beatings and expulsions of Blacks and sympathetic whites occurred with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The film leads its audience to Mississippi NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, promoter of voting rights for Blacks, who is murdered by Ku Klux Klan members. What’s fresh in the minds of Black people is the murders of three civil rights workers: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner by white supremacists in Mississippi in 1964. In September 1963, four little Black girls were murdered at a bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church. This serves as a backdrop to the murder of Dahmer.
When Dahmer is murdered, Black FBI Agent Wayne Strider, recently moving back to his hometown in Mississippi from Chicago, is called to investigate Dahmer’s murder. A most unlikely person to assist Strider in the investigation is white Mafia informant Gregory Scarpa Sr., a cold- blooded Brooklyn Italian mob operator. Their relationship is often tumultuous, largely because each man has a “slightly” different way of arresting Dahmer’s killers. Even the two men with their different approaches to the crime couldn’t help but see capricious humor in Wahlberg’s character of Scarpa.
Not uncommon with Hollywood studios, who have been known to take “political” license with historical facts, By Any Means is no exception. There were no Blacks or women in J. Edgar Hoover’ F.B.I. Yet, By Any Means is compelling and dramatic enough to sit through. The film may make some uncomfortable with the explicit violence, but one must remember there were countless acts of violence against anyone that might be for the civil rights of Black people.
By Any Means presents Gregory Scarpa as a very complicated historical figure who shies away from being a clear hero or villain. He works by way of the F.B.I., having no problem using violence to get information from white supremacists implicitly involved with murders. When everything is said and done, actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II reminds me of a young Denzel Washington.
Cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Wayne Strider), Mark Wahlberg (Greg Scarpa), Giancarlo Esposito (Vernon Dahmer), Lisa Gay Hamilton (Ms. Rebecca Brewer), La Chanze (Hattie Dahmer), Lee Perkins (Sheriff Mitchell).
Director: Elegance Bratton. Screenwriter: Sascha Penn. Cinematography: Ante Cheng.
Composer: Terence Blanchard.
Running time: 107 minutes.
Howard McQuitter II is a longtime movie critic. He has been reviewing movies for the alley since 2002.
