Mark Wahlberg has played plenty of bruisers and operators with a flexible relationship to the law, but “By Any Means” places him in a thornier corner of American history. The upcoming Paramount thriller stars Wahlberg as real-life mafia hitman Gregory Scarpa, opposite Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as FBI agent Wayne Strider, and the studio has unveiled the film’s first trailer.
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Directed by Elegance Bratton (“The Inspection”) and written by Sascha Penn (“Power Book III: Raising Kanan”), the 1960s-set film follows Scarpa and Strider as they form an uneasy alliance to investigate the murders of civil rights leaders in Mississippi and confront members of the Ku Klux Klan. The pairing gives the film its central friction: a Black federal agent working with a violent mob figure in a system already compromised by racism, corruption, and institutional failure.
Wahlberg recently told Entertainment Weekly that the film played strongly during a test screening, calling the response in the room unlike anything he had experienced and describing the movie as “one of the great revenge thrillers.” The first-look images they revealed also lean into his physical transformation, with Wahlberg wearing tinted aviator glasses, longer hair, and a side-parted comb-over. Bratton said Scarpa’s son was struck by the resemblance during an early makeup test, while Scarpa’s children served as advisors on the film.
Bratton told EW he saw the story as one about “justice moving through corrupted systems,” while also describing the film as “muscular, entertaining, and haunted.” That seems to be the lane “By Any Means” is trying to occupy: a historical crime thriller built for momentum, yet one that does not sidestep the violence and racial terror at its core.
The cast also includes Giancarlo Esposito as civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, whose voter registration work made him a target of the KKK. Dahmer died in 1966 after Klansmen firebombed his home, and Bratton told EW that Dahmer’s daughter, Bettie Dahmer, was present when the production filmed the sequence.
Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, Ethan Embry, LisaGay Hamilton, LaChanze, and David Strathairn co-star. “By Any Means” opens in theaters on September 4, 2026. Watch the trailer below.
