By Any Means

Plot summary

This movie follows a police officer who teams with a no-nonsense mob boss to determine the culprit when a house belonging to a family of colour is burned down in an act of racism.

Jeff’s take

Prior to me seeing this movie, the only thing I knew about it was that Mark Wahlberg was in it. I had no conception of the storyline of the movie or who was good and bad or what the central plot of this movie was.

Having said that, despite me knowing very little about this movie initially, the casting of Mark Wahlberg would have been enough to boost the rating, maybe even to a passing score, even if the rest of the movie could have been better and even if I never understood the plot of it to begin with.

The fact is that my admiration for Mark Wahlberg as an actor is very high and I love the way he acts. Therefore, any movie he’s in is one that I desire to see.

However, I will give this movie credit. Just as I was starting to think that the movie lacked any other redeeming quality aside from the casting of Mark Wahlberg, it suddenly started to improve in quality and make a lot more sense.

The violence towards the ending was very intriguing, to say the least, and I found myself cheering by the end. I also applauded the fact that despite Mark Wahlberg being in a very gruesome fight in some scenes, he barely ended up with even a scratch on him.

This is what I love most about this actor in general. Most things that he wants, he gets, whereas other characters within the film either fail or have to fight tooth and nail to get the things that they want or need.

Even though this movie started off slow in delivering on its promise to keep fans entertained, the fact is that eventually it succeeded in doing that, at least as far as I’m concerned.

To prove how great Mark Wahlberg is not only as an actor but as a human being, he said during an interview about this movie that by the end, people would be cheering and clapping. Well, this is exactly what I was doing by the end of this film.

It is one that is definitely recommended. This should be the case for all movies that Mark Wahlberg is cast in. He is a treasure on screen. Just his presence alone gives any movie a passing review, no matter how bad or questionable the movie is otherwise, but in this movie’s case, it was also a great movie!

Jeff-O-Meter final score: 10/10