Lionsgate ARKANSAS Stars Liam Hemsworth + Clark Duke!
Lionsgate will release the thriller, dark-comedy film ARKANSAS in select theaters, on Apple, Amazon and On Demand platforms on May 1, 2020. Continue on and watch…
CelebNMovies247.com has your first look at ARKANSAS starring Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games franchise, Independence Day: Resurgence), Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine franchise, Kick-Ass franchise).
ARKANSAS also stars Michael Kenneth Williams (12 Years a Slave, Boardwalk Empire), Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day franchise, Kill Bill franchise), Eden Brolin (“Yellowstone,” “Beyond”), Chandler Duke (“Veronica Mars,” “Where’s This Party?”) with Academy Award nominee John Malkovich (In The Line of Fire, “The New Pope”) and Vince Vaughn (Brawl In Cell Block 99, Wedding Crashers). The film is the feature directorial debut of Clark Duke who also co-wrote the film with Andrew Boonkrong making his feature screenwriting debut. The film is based on the novel by John Brandon.
SYNOPSIS:
In Clark Duke’s directorial debut, Kyle (Liam Hemsworth) and Swin (Clark Duke) live by the orders of an Arkansas-based drug kingpin named Frog (Vince Vaughn), whom they’ve never met. Posing as junior park rangers by day, they operate as low-level drug couriers by night under the watchful eye of Frog’s proxies (John Malkovich and Vivica A. Fox). Swin then settles into his day job by taking up a relationship with Johnna (Eden Brolin) against orders to blend in while Kyle continues to question his night job by trying to figure out who Frog really is. Their world is then upended after one too many inept decisions, and Kyle, Swin, and Johnna find themselves directly in Frog’s crosshairs, who mistakenly sees them as a threat to his empire. Based on John Brandon’s best-selling book of the same name, ARKANSAS weaves together three decades of Deep South drug trafficking to explore the cycle of violence that turns young men into criminals, and old men into legends.
DIRECTORS STATEMENT:
Arkansas is my home. My namesake grandfather was (to use the FBI’s term) a “known associate” of the Dixie Mafia. He was a true southern character- wrecked, blown up, arrested- like a Hank Jr song come to life. I always wanted to write something about him (and about crime and the South and fathers and sons and cycles of violence) and how a place with so few economic options can turn young men into criminals.
When I read the book ARKANSAS by John Brandon, it was a gut punch. It was everything I had wanted to write about, all the themes I wanted to explore, in this eloquent structure with dialog that left me dizzy. I optioned the book as quickly as I could. Brandon has since become a friend and an acclaimed novelist. ARKANSAS was his first book and he swears his favorite.
This is (my personal version of) the real South. There are no banjos on the soundtrack. The real South is heartbreaking and hilarious, poetic without being sentimental, mannered but brutally honest. To say that I am passionate about this movie does not do it justice- making it was my dream in every way and I am so very grateful that I got to make it with this amazing cast, surrounded by family and friends. Dreams, hard-fought, come true.
