Star-Studded Crime Thriller On Netflix Gives Former Child Actor His Explosive Directorial Debut

Long before Arkansas hit Netflix to stream at home, Clark Duke, along with his writing partner Andrew Boonkrong, began adapting the screenplay from a John Brandon novel of the same name.

Duke, who is an Arkansas native, also stars in the movie alongside a host of incredible talent. The film is divided into five distinct chapters, each of which provides additional layers and details to a fascinating story about a pair of criminal drug-runners and their mysterious and bloodthirsty boss.

The first act of Arkansas on Netflix introduces audiences to Kyle Ribb and Swin Horn, two hapless would-be criminals who have been selected to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics across the state for a man known only as Frog.

While posing as a pair of national park rangers, the duo continuously get themselves into trouble with distractions, side-deals, and other misadventures.

During a particularly ill-advised run through Castor, Louisiana, Swin and Kyle find themselves in the midst of a deadly shootout, which threatens their good standing with Frog, and sends them on the run.

I won’t give away too many plot details for Arkansas here, so if you’re curious you’ll have to pull up the film on Netflix.

Clark Duke’s direction has garnered some positive attention from critics, though the film gained most of its notoriety due to its all-star cast, which includes Liam Hemsworth, Vivica A. Fox, Chris Mullinax, Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, and Community‘s Michael K. Williams.

While the critical response for Arkansas was mixed, resulting in a 51 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was initially on track to receive a much wider released before eventually landing on Netflix.

Like many other films that premiered in the year 2020, Arkansas was a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global lockdown. In fact, Arkansas was one of the very first films to be impacted by this global event, as the film was initially slated to premiere at South By Southwest on March 15, 2020, before seeing a wide theatrical release.

The event was one of the first public outings to be shut down for the nationwide public health hazard, leaving Arkansas to have a video on demand only release months later.

I personally had no idea about Arkansas until recently, when I happened upon it randomly while scrolling through Netflix. I gave it a spin, not really knowing what to expect, and wound up really enjoying it.

It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it packs in some intense action, a few hearty laughs, and a lot of star power. For those interested in checking it out, Arkansas is streaming on Netflix today.

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