By Any Means explores imperfect alliances in the fight for civil rights

A new historical crime thriller, By Any Means, revisits the violent struggle for civil rights in 1960s Mississippi, where an FBI agent joins forces with a Mafia hitman to pursue members of the Ku Klux Klan responsible for the murder of civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer.

The film stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as FBI agent Wayne Stryder, who returns to his home state to confront racial violence and fight for change.

For Abdul-Mateen, the story also reflects the importance of addressing inequalities that continue to affect the American South.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Actor: "The least of us should be served just as well as the greatest of us. And so I think I wholeheartedly believe that."

Director Elegance Bratton says the film challenges the idea that social change requires perfect allies.

Elegance Bratton, Director: "There's no such thing as perfect allies. And these problems, all of us are implicated, whether victim or perpetrator. So we're gonna get ourselves out of this situation, you gotta look to your left and your right and decide that as long as we're focused on the same target, then perhaps the specifics of how we got here is unimportant until we win."

By Any Means premieres in U.S. theaters on September 4.