Arkansas native John-Michael Powell had something to prove by foregrounding the Ozark mountains in his new crime thriller “ Violent Ends ,” in theaters now via Independent Film Company.

“There’s some great Southern cinema, don’t get me wrong,” Powell says. “But I think oftentimes Southerners, and Arkansans especially, are relegated to redneck yokel stereotypes: The lovable fools, the nitwits and the uneducated. That was true of my experiences growing up. We had family in California, so we’d always visit, and I don’t have an accent, but my mother and my family sound like Southern belles. To see the way people reacted to the accent … their first inclination was, ‘Oh, that’s so cute,’ but really the subtext was, ‘Oh, they’re less intelligent than us, and lesser.’ I do think that has a lo

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