With whispers from the ghost of John Singleton in every frame, combined with a complex intersection of relationships from Mike Figgis’s One Night Stand, Tray Williams’ Armstrong: Dark Secrets twists and turns like a river of blood, leading to retribution and revenge born out of deceit and betrayal.
The situation unfolds with two of our characters, Lil C (Joseph Mason) and Armstrong (Jaylon Bolden), knocking on heaven’s door after both being the victims of gunshots. As both their lives hang in the balance, Lil C is watched over in hospital by his girl Missy (Gloria Prince) whilst they tend to Armstrong on the down-low, looked out for by his boy Sneek (Christian Menace).
After hours of waiting, worry, and a definite close call, Lil C and Armstrong survive their encounter with each other, without either knowing the other has escaped death. Lil C soon returns home with Missy, where he continues his rehabilitation with his nurse, Sasha (Zarmauni Deal), who, unbeknownst to her patient, is the brother of the man who tried to kill him.
But, as both men’s fight returns to health, a bitter blood feud has erupted on the streets when Lil C’s brother, Mazi (Corey Pratt), rolls into town looking for the head of the dude who tried to murder his brother. After hooking up with members of his former posse of the streets, Mazi finds out that Sneek is linked to the shooting, so he green-lights a hit on him. Sneek, meanwhile, thinking his friend dead, looks to blow town with his mother. With the money he has put aside, the boy and his mother pack their meager belongings and hit the road.
“Lil C and Armstrong survive their encounter with each other, without either knowing the other has escaped death…”
Yet it’s a move made too late as Sneek’s mother is shot during his attempted assassination, which he barely endures. After staying low, fearing reprisal, Armstrong and Sneek are soon reunited after Sasha informs him of the news of his friend’s mother’s death. Sneek vows vengeance once he starts to piece together Missy’s connection with Lil C and how she was playing with both him and Armstrong at the same time. With word out on the street on opposite sides, the parties and their informants follow the scents and the strands until Armstrong calls on a gang lord to help him arm up for the final conflict.
All the players are fixed on a collision course as the stakes rise, and the secrets come to the surface, how each member is tied to the next factors into this incredibly intense and sharply scripted drama that sizzles with its dialogue and boils with brilliant performances from every member of the cast.
Tray Williams is a filmmaker to watch. This reviewer, for one, eagerly awaits his next outing. Still, for right now, Armstrong: Dark Secrets is a smoking revolver of a movie with blinding muzzle flare and thunderous recoil in this tale of vendetta, brotherhood, relationships and the fragility of life when one unwittingly becomes a victim of circumstance by being the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the worst time imaginable.
"… a smoking revolver of a movie with blinding muzzle flare and thunderous recoil..."
