Everyone’s familiar with the Scorsese-style New York mobs of the East Coast and the Scorsese-style Las Vegas mobs of the West, but what often gets lost is the more bumbling and ostentatious criminality of the South. The star-studded dark comedy/thriller Arkansas is here to rectify that.
My first impression? I want Vince Vaughn’s shirts. They’re loud and weird and absolutely what I need in my life. Is his criminal-kingpin character named Frog, because in every outfit he’s sure to leap out of a crowd? Almost definitely.
Based on the John Brandon book of the same name, Arkansas sees Liam Hemsworth playing Kyle (the first cool Kyle in the history of film?), a low-ranking gangster of the criminal underbelly in Arkansas. He works under Frog, whom he’s never met, and while trying to figure out the identity of their drug-running boss a number of inept decisions leave Kyle and his cohorts directly in Frog’s crosshairs.
I’m a big fan of the dumb-criminal sub-genre that includes the likes of Pain & Gain and I, Tonya, so this is right up my alley. I look forward to heading South with Arkansas when it hits theaters and VOD on May 1, 2020.
