Film review: Mark Wahlberg excels as a thoroughly repellent gangster

Mark Wahlberg plays a hitman who joins forces with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s FBI agent in the crime film “By Any Means Necessary.” The unlikely partnership puts a contract killer in the role of crime solver.

The film reportedly draws on claims about an FBI operation in 1960s New York. According to that account, the bureau used gangster Joe Colombo’s hitman, Greg Scarpa, to pressure Ku Klux Klan members suspected of racist murders into making confessions.

The review approaches the film’s claim to be based on real events cautiously. Such productions often take an actual incident as their starting point, then build fictional elements around it.

Within that framework, Wahlberg’s performance stands out. He portrays the gangster as thoroughly repellent, while the film places the morally disturbing figure at the center of its investigation.