Arkansas

I've seen Clark Duke around as an actor. The final season of "The Office", in Burt Reynolds final movie, a TV episode here and there.

Somewhere along the line, he decided to try his hand at writing and directing, putting together a decent cast for his debut film ARKANSAS.

Let's hope there are still acting roles available for him.

Mired in some kind of false mythology that good ol' boy drug runners in the South have deep and therefore interesting loyalties, the film meanders from scene to scene with no real sense of story.

Great actors are wasted.

Vince Vaughn is a drug lord named Frog, hiding behind other identities and wielding an explosive temper. Vaughn is stranded by the material and deserves better.

So do John Malkovich and Liam Hemsworth. Malkovich earns some laughs with some of his dialogue when he's being tortured for information, but Duke the writer suffers from the all too common "Tarantino-wannabe" disease.

QT writes eccentric dialogue that spews forth from his characters in violent tirades. Often foul, fast and venomous, the words feel real. It's a style that's almost impossible to replicate and Duke fails miserably in the words he's given his characters to speak.

He even adapts QT's habit of dividing his film into titled chapters. While Tarantino's chapters tend to be non-linear and very clever, Duke's tend to just reward you with the knowledge that you've managed to stay awake for about another 25 minutes.

I've been to Arkansas more than once. It should sue this mess for sullying its name. And it was Arkansas to begin with, so that's saying something.

A waste of time, talent and my time. This turd gets an F.