The biggest problem with modern politics is the discrepancy between the sides. One side gets to lie, cheat, and crime. The other side does not. Oh, don’t bother with the “both sides are equal” bullshit. Any normal political scene would have held Donald Trump accountable years ago. There’s no way he’d be President because he’d be in jail, and in a world that worked, everyone would agree that such was correct; he is a criminal many times over and justice has been served.
That isn’t, however, the climate in which we live, and sane Americans right now are learning the ugly consequences of what happens when one side doesn’t believe in accountability. It is also learning a very painful lesson that vanity is possibly the most dangerous of the deadly sins.
But that’s a different film.
By Any Means asks a basic question: What if the Left didn’t have a problem with results-based actions? What if the champions of the constitution and civil rights and equality were just as ruthless and criminal as fascists? Again, stop pretending this isn’t a thing. If there’s any part of you that believes the Left is as violent or crimes nearly as often as the Right, you need to rethink your news sources. Like, stat.
The place is Mississippi. The time is 1966. Jim Crow, Separate-but-equal, and Poll Taxes are all out in full force and haunting like permanent Halloween. Oh yeah, lynching is happening as well. Fearing a day when cultural dominance will not favor white men across the board, many residents of Mississippi target black leaders. One such activist is Vernon Dahmer. Dahmer is murdered by racists in his own home after pushing efforts to get Black people to vote by offering to pay their individual poll taxes.
The FBI wasn’t 100% white guys at the time, but it was close, and it did seem to have its own segregation issues. The FBI also didn’t have a problem hiring a leg-breaker to get to necessary confessions. In the wake of Dahmer’s murder, Chicago agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and mobster-turned-informant Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahblerg) are assigned to the case.
It is embarrassing for everybody involved that Scarpa is one in charge. But we see almost instantly why when Scarpa kills a dirty cop ten minutes into their adventure. Yes, the cop was racist. Yes, he was impeding an FBI investigation. Yes, bad things could have happened. And, yet, did the officer deserve to die? Meh. Probably. And here, instantly, we’ve come to exactly what this film is about: Do the ends justify the means? More importantly: What good are the laws you want to uphold if you’re willing to break them in order to uphold
them? In other words: What is justice? What if justice cannot be achieved legally? Is it still justice?
And, of course, on another level, there are other questions: Has the FBI always been corrupt? I mean, it sure is a shit show now. [see: Bestiality, Kash Patel] The Bureau has had issues for decades. It has always been run by Republicans; when has it ever been clean? And how often did those thoughts go hand-in-hand?
By Any Means reaches the exact dividing line of true catharsis: the film is satisfying on a primal level while entirely unsatisfying on a social level. Sure, watching Mark Wahlberg bash a racist or five is definitely satisfactory on one level. On another, however, it is completely not. Do I want so badly to “get” Trump that I’m willing to stoop to his level of criminality? No. (But, TBH, mostly because I’m certain he’s much better at it, having years of practice and all.) What I really want, however, is PURE justice. The man commits crimes. The party commits crimes while protecting the man. The party tells us they care about the criming. OK, prove it. And let’s see justice be done. A broken kneecap or a bullet isn’t actually justice because those things lead to more broken kneecaps and more bullets. What we really need is for justice to be served. Hence, I will never agree with a film like By Any Means that suggests progress is better nudged by violence no matter how much it doesn’t seem to be nudged by legal methods. And, hence, I cannot recommend this film no matter how cathartic certain moments are.
There once was an agent named Strider
Assigned to be a Mississippi back rider
For justice they’ll beg
From a mobster named “Greg”
Good luck if you’re a rule abider
Rated R, 107 Minutes
Director: Elegance Bratton
Writer: Sascha Penn
Genre: The Left acquires a leg-breaker
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: “The ends justify the means”
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “If you break the laws enforcing the laws, what do you stand for?”
