The Real Story Behind By Any Means: How Mark Wahlberg’s Hitman Thriller Blurs Fact and Fiction
Mark Wahlberg goes full mob in By Any Means, the gritty take on real-life hitman Greg Scarpa, hitting theaters September 4. We break down the true-crime facts, FBI intrigue, and what director Elegance Bratton and writer Sascha Penn kept—and bent—for the screen.
If you reckon Mark Wahlberg playing a real-life mafia hitman who conveniently helps the FBI take down the Ku Klux Klan sounds both mad and right up Hollywood’s alley, well, buckle up. Wahlberg’s new film By Any Means is landing in UK cinemas this September, and there’s a fair bit of unbelievable-but-true backstory behind it—plus a few movie embellishments that, bluntly, stand out a mile. Here’s what’s actually real, what’s been spiced up, and who’s in the thick of it.
The Film: Who, When & What
By Any Means comes courtesy of director Elegance Bratton (last seen with the excellent The Inspection) with a script by Sascha Penn. The film stacks up a strong cast:
- Mark Wahlberg as infamous real-life mobster Gregory Scarpa Sr.
- Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Wayne Striker—a fictional Black FBI agent central to the film
- Nicole Beharie
- Giancarlo Esposito as NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer
- Josh Lucas
- David Strathairn
- Ethan Embry
- LisaGay Hamilton
- LaChanze
The Real Story: Mobsters vs. the KKK (Sort Of)
Here’s where things get weird. Gregory Scarpa Sr., Wahlberg’s character, wasn’t just any gangster—he was a capo in New York’s Colombo crime family, and a thoroughly ruthless one at that. What’s genuinely surprising: during the 1960s, Scarpa ended up moonlighting as an FBI informant. You wouldn’t expect ‘Mafia hitman turns occasional good Samaritan,’ but that’s what happened—at least, on paper.
The big draw for the film is the notorious 1964 ‘Mississippi Burning’ case, where three civil rights activists—Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner—vanished and were later found murdered. Officially, the Bureau couldn’t coerce suspects themselves ('not exactly proper procedure,' as you might say), so Scarpa was allegedly paid to go full gangster on a suspected Klansman to squeeze out the location of the bodies. If it sounds dodgy for the façade of federal law enforcement, it’s because it absolutely is.
Scarpa was reportedly also tied to the investigation of Vernon Dahmer’s killing, an NAACP organiser who was murdered by Klan members for his efforts to get Black voters registered in Mississippi. Giancarlo Esposito plays Dahmer in the film, though you can bet his screen-time will be even more harrowing than anything you’d see in a straight drama about activists.
What’s Real, What’s Been Jazzed Up
Now here’s a key detail: while Scarpa’s involvement as an informant is grounded in reality—yes, the FBI did use criminals for dirty work on occasion—his supposed buddy-cop relationship with a young Black FBI agent is pure invention for the film. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s character, Wayne Striker, is wholly fictional. In actual history, Scarpa never had an agency minder on these missions, and the FBI did not send Black field agents to handle the Mississippi Klan cases back then. If you’re thinking that all sounds suspiciously cinematic, you’re spot on.
According to the film’s official blurb:
'The film follows a young Black FBI agent who is sent into 1960s Mississippi to investigate a wave of brutal killings targeting civil rights leaders. Forced to work alongside notorious mafia hitman Greg Scarpa, he finds himself pulled into a deadly hunt where justice and vengeance begin to blur.'
In short, By Any Means mixes a handful of headline-making real events—a mobster working for the feds, grim Klan murders, a desperate search for justice—with a fair portion of screenwriting fantasy.