Hollywood has given us some classic mismatched buddy cop movies, like Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in “48 Hrs.,” Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in “Rush Hour” and perhaps the most iconic pair — Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in “Lethal Weapon.” Now, make room for Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg.
The latest duo stars in “By Any Means,” an opposites-attract movie with real historical heft, set against the racial and political violence of the American South in the late 1960s and told with blood-splashing power and blunt elegance, courtesy of director Elegance Bratton.
Here we get Abdul-Mateen as a by-the-book, Southern-born, wet-behind-the-ears, Black FBI agent teamed up with Wahlberg, a jaundiced New York Mafia hitman, two characters crossing the racial, North-South and polite barriers.
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Unable to crack the 1966 firebombing murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer Sr., the FBI turns to Wahlberg’s Gregory Scarpa, letting him loose off the books to solve the case. The Ku Klux Klan is everywhere, especially in law enforcement, and that means Scarpa’s got to crack some skulls, no warrant, no problem. “Nobody can know,” the pair are warned.
Bratton and scriptwriter Sascha Penn artfully straddle the various divides and historical animosities while delivering a propulsive, muscular and unvarnished action thriller, a sort of “Mississippi Burning” for a new generation. And, it must be noted, at a time when white Christian nationalism has once more reared its ugly head.
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“By Any Means” is one of those “based on true events” movies that gives the filmmakers the chance to have their nonfiction cake and eat it fictionally, too. While it might seem historically fanciful that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI ever called in a hitman to hunt the KKK, Scarpa was a real guy, an FBI informant enlisted amid intense pressure to solve the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. It’s his FBI buddy who never existed, a “composite,” as the press materials note.
So full credit to Abdul-Mateen, who has created a complex, charismatic character from thin air, taking his agent Wayne Strider on a slow-burn trip from all tucked-in, waiting-outside respectfully to car-chasing, gun-shooting revenge-fantasy hero.
Wahlberg, meanwhile, grips every external item we know of Scarpa and holds onto them for dear life: An ever-present toothpick in mouth, a prosthetic nose, a mop of ungainly hair, a white tank top, sunglasses even at night. Wahlberg has apparently rewatched “The Sopranos” a lot.
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The movie is buoyed by an amazing supporting cast, like the terrific Nicole Beharie as Strider’s wife, LisaGay Hamilton as a key witness and Giancarlo Esposito as Dahmer. The pastel costumes and bulging, chrome cars are gorgeous. The soundtrack features Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Curtis Mayfield, and an anthemic title jam by Diane Warren, performed by the Isley Brothers and David Kushner.
It’s the interaction between the hitman and the FBI agent that’s at the heart of the movie, along with the lingering question of whether violence can ever be a corrective. The Mafia guy’s methods — smashing skulls, breaking bones with a baseball bat, putting guns into mouths — stun his partner. And while the violence gets a bit excessive, it’s kind of thrilling to see gutless KKK members beaten to a bloody pulp over and over.
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Scarpa is a fascinating alien in rural Mississippi, a slab of Italian American muscle who stands outside the racial divide. He’s just there to do a job, nothing more. But when asked what he’d do if he ever faced such racial animus, he replies: “I’d kill them all, every last one of them.”
Our FBI agent isn’t impressed. He despises his Mafia partner so much that, if forced to choose between him and the KKK, he knows which way he’d lean: “At least they believe in something.”
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The tension between the two men boils over into a “48 Hrs.”- style, knock-down fistfight. At this point, the movie veers off the rails a bit, culminating in a very bloody conclusion. But that doesn’t dim the introduction of a very effective new movie cop pairing — Abdul-Mateen and Wahlberg.
“By Any Means,” a Paramount Pictures release in theaters starting Sept. 4, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “violence/bloody images and pervasive language.” Running time: 107 minutes. Three stars out of four.
