The all-too-human lust for vengeance collides with the faint hope for justice in “By Any Means,” a Civil Rights thriller set in the “Mississippi Burning” timeline.

It’s a violent “true enough for Hollywood” tale of torture and summary executions in pursuit of Mississippi racists who murdered a civil rights leader.

What director Elegance Bratton (“The Inspection”) was shooting for was an upending of the “white savior” trope that films since before “To Kill a Mockingbird” and after “Mississippi Burning” have leaned on.

uppose your “white savior” is a pitiless, amoral and murderous mobster?

But the film’s script (by Sascha Penn, a producer who wrote “Creed II” among other credits) forgets to give us a villain, leaving us a vague “They’re all guilty” parade of colorless, stupid, white supremacist rednecks.

And Bratton and Penn drain most of the pathos out of the deaths of a couple of civil rights figures played by the formidable Giancarlo Esposito and LisaGay Hamilton.

Two years after the Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner murders that were the basis for “Mississippi Burning,” and things are no better in the “Segretation now, segregation forever” Deep South. The F.B.I., a little more integrated since that notorious case, is embedded there and getting nowhere.

Special Agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Matteen II, “Manta” in an “Aquaman,” a mainstay of TV’s “The Get Down”) has returned to his native Mississippi for a chance to make a difference, only to be consigned to the filing department archives.

But his bosses (David Strathairn and Josh Lucas) change their tune with D.C. higher-ups decide to bring back a “no rules” thug who helped them crack the Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner murder case by breaking some heads.

Gregory Scarpa (Mark Walhberg, at his most ripped) is only referred to by name in the closing credits. He’s a notorious piece of F.B.I. civil rights era lore (the Bureau denies hiring this killer) who loomed in the background of “Mississippi Burning.” You’ve got your guy and he won’t confess? Mr. “Uniquely Qualified” for this sort of work, Mr. “I HAVE no rules” is your man.

He’ll beat confessions, get bloodied torture subjects to name names, and bust up the murderous KKK and its various “white citizens’ councils” one broken man or dead body at a time.

Wahlberg plays the guy as almost irresistably loathesome, a monster with a family of five he cheats on, and leaves behind in Bensonhurst, blackmailed (he’s a mob informant) into heading back South and doing what he does.

Strider? “You’re to be his handler.”

A “buddy” picture is in the making, with Strider reluctant to try and “explain racism to someone like you” as Mr. Colombo Crime Family expresses disdain for Martin Luther King, Jr., and a preference for “that other guy, Malcolm.”

You know, the one who decided passive resistance against racist oppressors was too slow when winning equal rights and treatment under the law “by any means necessary” seemed like the quicker, if more violent way to go.

The movie’s glib and muted in its impact, right from the start. Screenwriter Penn makes the bickering cliched and the actors do nothing to stop him.

Having our mobster try to convince our “colored” agent to see things his way? No and then “yes” happen so close together it’s a wonder Mateen didn’t give himself the same whiplash the movie gives viewers. Of course it has something to do with “they came after my WIFE” (Nicole Beharie).

A racist, threatening Alabama highway patrolman gets it and all Scarpa wants is a “Thank-you.” Well, not exactly. Our screenwriter throws in “Can I get a smile?” to try and get a laugh.

Walhberg plays to the audience as he tortures this or that hapless, tables-turned oppressor.

“There’s a point where everybody talks,” he tells his victims. Former child actor Ethan Embry is the most recognizable member of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi KKK lynch mob.

We may relish people who “get what’s coming” to them. But the film’s amorphous treatment of villainy — making a point that it’s a whole culture, political ruling class and its law enforcement goons who are to blame — robs the film of any sense of vindication and righteous judgement.

Shootouts where most everybody misses and chases that serve little purpose kill some screen time.

Which is better than what Penn and Bratton do when there’s down time in the narrative.

Penn takes it on himself to invent his characters’ own etymology of the racial slurs — more popular in the ’60s — that our two “buddy” “heroes” sling at one another and define for each other. No, “Cracker” doesn’t refer to anything anybody eats, and “Wop” doesn’t mean “WithOut Papers.”

God help him if Penn did this on purpose, because the mostly Wahlberg white audience drawn to this Labor Day-dumped misfire might just believe it.

Rating: R, graphic violence, torture, profanity

Cast:
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Wahlberg, Nicole Behari, Josh Lucas, LisaGay Hamilton, Ethan Embry, David Strathairn and Giancarlo Esposito

Credits: Directed by Elegance Bratton, scripted by Sascha Penn. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:47