The story behind By Any Means sounds like somebody came up with it for a crime movie, but Nicole Beharie sees something more hopeful underneath its dark true-story premise.
Investigators are trying to find out who’s killing civil rights activists in 1960s Mississippi, but they aren’t getting anywhere. So they bring in somebody who wouldn’t normally be anywhere near an official investigation.
A mafia hitman.
That’s the remarkable true-story premise behind By Any Means, starring Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie and Giancarlo Esposito. It’s obviously dealing with a dark and violent period in American history, but Beharie doesn’t see the movie as being entirely about that darkness. The actress found something hopeful in the story as well, giving audiences another way to look at a film built around murder, injustice and an investigation that refuses to go the way anyone expected.
By Any Means turns to a very unlikely investigator
The murders at the center of By Any Means take place in Mississippi during the civil rights movement, with investigators trying to figure out who’s responsible for killing activists. They keep coming up empty, and that’s when the story takes a turn that would sound a little far-fetched if it weren’t based on something that actually happened. Investigators enlist the help of a mafia hitman to help solve the crimes, creating the kind of unlikely partnership that immediately gives the By Any Means movie an unusual place between historical drama and crime thriller.
There are serious issues surrounding everything that’s happening, but there’s also the question of what this hitman can accomplish that investigators haven’t been able to do on their own. That makes the true story behind By Any Means especially intriguing, because the investigation eventually requires people to look somewhere they normally wouldn’t for help. Putting Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie and Giancarlo Esposito into the middle of that story also gives the film quite a cast to work with as it explores a painful period in American history through the structure of a crime investigation.
Nicole Beharie sees hope in By Any Means
There’s no getting around what By Any Means is dealing with. Civil rights activists are being murdered, the investigation isn’t working and the movie takes place during one of the ugliest periods of racial violence in the country. But that wasn’t all Nicole Beharie took away from it. In discussing By Any Means, Beharie said she believes there’s a really positive message underneath the film. For her, the ugliness surrounding these characters doesn’t wipe out what they’re trying to accomplish or the determination driving them forward.
They’re still trying to find the people responsible, and they’re still looking for justice when getting it isn’t easy. Somehow, people who wouldn’t normally have much reason to trust each other wind up working toward the same thing. That’s part of what makes the Nicole Beharie interview perspective on the movie so interesting. She isn’t ignoring the darkness at the center of the story, but she sees something beyond it as well. That’s the part of By Any Means that Beharie hopes audiences take with them after the movie is over.
Click on the video below to hear Nicole Beharie talk about By Any Means.
By Any Means has quite a story behind it
A mafia hitman helping investigators solve the murders of civil rights activists isn’t exactly the first place you’d expect a story about the 1960s civil rights movement to go. That’s also what makes By Any Means such an interesting premise. It has the investigation and crime elements you might expect from a thriller, but they’re tied to something that actually happened during a painful period in American history.
The people involved are trying to solve murders, and when the usual approach isn’t working, they wind up looking for help somewhere nobody would expect. That gives By Any Means a hook that feels almost invented for Hollywood while still being rooted in a true story. For Nicole Beharie, however, what matters isn’t simply how unusual the investigation becomes. There’s hope to be found in the determination to keep searching for justice even when the odds make that difficult.
By Any Means, starring Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie and Giancarlo Esposito, opens in theaters this Friday.
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