By Any Means

“See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.” —1 Thessalonians 5:15

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” —Matthew 6:14-15

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.” —Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Director Elegance Bratton and screenwriter Sascha Penn have taken to heart the trademark line from John Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: “when legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In making “By Any Means,” the filmmakers have done that and more. Their story which they do more than imply is factual, is the stuff of legend, a fanciful one, devoid of historical grounding, mythical force and common sense.

FBI special agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) cannot break a case involving the homicide of an NAACP leader in Mississippi during the 1960s. The Civil Rights Law of 1964 has been passed, but in Mississippi black voters are held back from voting due to poll taxes, literacy tests and threats of violence.

When local businessman and NAACP spokesman Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito) offers to cover the tax for those citizens unable to pay it, he is targeted and eliminated by the local Ku Klux Klan. The FBI pumps up Strider’s investigation by sending in Gregory Scarpa, an undercover mafia enforcer and a member a New York’s Columbo crime family, to assist him in uncovering the identity of the murderers.

What ensues is a volley, verbal but at times physical, between two opposites on a journey to, if not brotherhood, at least an understanding of sorts. Their dialog, a Bunsen burner of race and class bigotries, aims for the highbrow of “In the Heat of the Night” or “Training Day” while still borrowing from the lowbrow of “Rush Hour” or “Lethal Weapon.”

Scarpa, played by Mark Wahlberg with swaggering, toothpick chewing, Cutty Sark gulping bravado, exudes impish comic charm, but too often descends into guttural grunts and smirks. Ultimately, Wahlberg delivers a parody of, rather than a dive into, the depths of depravity.

The rumors about Scarpa’s involvement in the true crime episodes that took place in Mississippi in 1964 and 1966 have been circulating for years. The filmmakers claim they are true. Not so fast. Many reports seem to indicate that it was more likely that paid informants led investigators to the hidden burial sites of three murdered civil rights workers (dramatized in the 1988 film, “Mississippi Burning”) in 1964, and the killers of Dahmer in 1966. Despite conflicting evidence, the legend of Scarpa’s involvement lives on and has become the source material for this lopsided and morally inverted tale of corruption and revenge.

The characterization of Scarpa as a greasy, tee-shirt wearing, flea bag hotel frequenting Northerner contrasts strongly with the real Scarpa who, by all accounts, lived a “Goodfellas” style New York life. Pictures and stories about him reveal a flashy bon vivant, not a sloppy, low on the rung “Mean Streets” hooligan, the type a steadfast FBI office would give the thumbs down to in a second.

Scarpa assists Strider not by tracking down evidence, reading case files, following leads, or eliciting testimony. His interviewing techniques start with some soft questions but end with baseball bats to the kneecaps and guns down the throat. Strider, at first appalled by Scarpa’s methods, comes to accept and adopt the violent tactics. The agent who prides himself in saying “I believe in justice and negroes need to play a part in getting it” soon adapts to the hitman’s mottos “If there’s no witness, there’s no crime,” “I knock some heads around and I crack the case,” and “Protocol, what the f*** is that?” The FBI’s motto of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity” with its guiding values of “loyalty, courage and moral character” are sidelined. Since the system is broken rules need to be broken too.

Underground forces, criminal ones working in tandem or in competition with police forces have been a feature of crime films since cinema’s earliest days. Fritz Lange’s “M,” made in 1931, gives as much credence to criminal underground enforcers as it does to the law-and-order ones, as both groups work to locate, capture and punish a child killer. The opening to Lange’s film is one of the most anguishing depictions of a crime ever put on film although it never shows the seminal abduction and murder. The ending is just as harrowing, a portent of how great a price society pays for separating justice from fairness.

Men and women in law enforcement take an oath to protect the people they serve. They also take an oath to uphold the law. Committing a crime to fight a crime makes a mockery of that oath, bowing to the sin that “cometh before the fall.” Bestowing upon oneself the offices of judge, jury and in this case, executioner is akin to the antagonist in Milton’s Paradise Lost declaring: “better to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven.” Justice attained “by any means,” a phrase taken from Malcolm X who declared that “we want justice by any means necessary,” is not justice. It’s revenge. Such retaliation hardly becomes the avenger whether he conspires to kill or whether he pulls the trigger himself. Inevitably, such an “I do you a favor, you do me one” handshake carries a Faustian price tag. Did the FBI, then under the leadership of the all-seeing, all-knowing, mostly all-by-the-book J. Edgar Hoover not understand that such a favor would be linked to an eventual call-in?

During the wedding scene of “The Godfather” a weeping undertaker asks the princely don for a favor, justice for his daughter who was beaten up and almost raped by thugs who were subsequently let off easy by the courts. The don, a perverse inversion of King Solomon, grants the man’s wish and has the two boys beaten within an inch of their lives. The undertaker is satisfied, mollified and gratified. But his story does not end there. The Godfather returns, on a dark night, one clouded with death, to call in his favor. The revenge tale always comes full circle. And always brings doom.

I do not mean to clutch pearls and to claim that I feel no release, no elation, and okay, I’ll admit it, no glee when a bad guy gets his comeuppance be it fair or be it over-the-top. The gears of justice grind slowly, and it’s vexing to sit back and watch a process whose only speeds are slow and stop. Rewatching movies such as “Dirty Harry” and “Death Wish” make me hyperventilate but then exhale with relief. I’m uplifted when a crook makes Harry Callahan’s day or when Paul Kersey pulls out a Colt, a Beretta or a Walther PPK from his rumpled overcoat. I relish Satan’s descent in Milton’s Paradise Lost, his nine-day tumble through the miserable realms of Chaos before he reaches the pits of Hell. I could even go for a tenth day.

This summer’s “Citizen Vigilante” was a revenge romp which attacked aspects of modern society that are undeniably unjust and un-atoned for. Uwe Boll’s movie was universally condemned by its critics but not by its audience to whose muffled cries the director gave a resounding voice. But had the villains been white supremacists or Ku Klux Klan Kleagles rather than criminal immigrants and corrupt judges would the ire of the j’accuse set have blazed so hot?

Another dismissed summer release, Eli Roth’s “Ice Cream Man,” a horror movie which blended elements of a gross-out slasher romp with a rollicking revenge caper proved to be a gripping social commentary. The film’s fearsome grade-school killers went after their parents who were innocent in a no-clue way but represented a society comprised of the unjust and the unpunished: comfortable suburban elites, law-bending attorneys, indoctrinating educational systems with their hordes of school bullies, scientific scolds (a murder with a microscope was particularly pointed), and a sainted protest culture (one fiery scene could have been lifted directly from 2020 Minneapolis). Roth’s film, viscerally horrifying, was a seminal cinematic event, a cultural phenomenon unrecognizable to a movie culture soaked in relativism, euphemistic language and political coercion.

“By Any Means” has some moments of respite, some of which could even be called good cinema. Abdul-Mateen’s performance is measured and restrained. His facial expressions reveal the ongoing battle between the pang of his conscience and the pull of his passions. He lets you know that his character’s surrender to violence is eating away at him, making him smaller. My favorite scene is one in which Strider teaches his wife, Allison (Nicole Beharie) how to fire a pistol. Beharie is a vision clad in capri pants and high heels while aiming a revolver at a target, exuding sex appeal on a plane we too rarely see. The Strider family bond grounds the movie and rescues it from the corruption knocking at its door.

But ultimately, Bratton’s film is crass, venal and unmerciful. Its law enforcers reduce themselves to the level of Mr. Blonde in “Reservoir Dogs.” Their torture retinue drowns out elements that a solid crime story needs: the suspense of pursuit, the drama of discovery, and the satisfaction of justice served. Instead, one-dimensional villains are ID’d, chased down, belittled and swiftly demolished. There’s no time for hand wiping or blowing away barrel chamber smoke before rinsing and repeating. Prejudice and acrimony go round and round with no stopovers for reflection, confession or forgiveness. Ultimately, one of the criminals, reduced to a pulpy and pathetic pile, implores his arresters/attackers: “Have mercy.”

In “The Merchant of Venice” Shakespeare says that mercy is “twice blessed: it blesseth him who gives and him that takes. ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest.” There is nothing merciful, nothing blessed, and nothing mighty about this misguided and unkind film.

• Violence: Very Heavy
• Profane language: Very Heavy
• Vulgar/Crude language: Very Heavy
• Sex: Moderate
• Drugs/Alcohol: Moderate
• Nudity: Minor
• Wokeism: Minor
• Occult: None

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