Of all the pictures one has come to expect “Black Dynamite” and B-and-C movie action star Michael Jai White to turn up in, a soapy, faith-friendly melodrama trotted out for Easter has to be the most “out there.”
“The Secret Between Us” is a static, turgid and low-stakes tale about lives disrupted by “secrets” plural, any and all of which have been potboiled to death on daytime soap operas going back decades.
White plays Jack Frazier, an Atlanta-based airline pilot with a daughter (Lisa Arrindell) finishing her medical residency who figures tonight’s the night longtime love (Denzell Dandridge) will propose, and an adoring wife (Lisa Arrindell) who’s arranged for all this to come about on husband Jack’s birthday.
But their dueling celebrations are interrupted by a knock at the door. A stranger stands before them. He (Tre Ryan) is 28 years old. And he’s the son flyboy Jack never knew he had. Apparently.
Nothing is quite worth taking at face value as writer-director Tamera Hill tosses secrets within secrets at us in a cascade of coincidences that range from “give me a break” to ludicrous. I mean, things get so bad that wife Lisa has to blurt out what she does for a living.
“What makes it worse is I’m a clincal psychologist!“
Things start off lax and flail away as health crises, hidden family history and lies within lies unravel and “God’s will be done” seems like everybody’s best response to it all. Including the editor.
The script is clunky and writer-director Hill, a few credits removed from “she’ll figure this out, eventually” status, serves up static scene after scene where nothing much happens save for a bit of empassioned conversation. There’s no pace as the editing leaves in footage before anybody should have called “Action” and scenes go on past the point where a “CUT!” was called for.
We don’t need to see that Torrance Frazier, the “son Jack never (sure) knew he had,” hired a “private investigator” to ID a man whose NAME AND PROFESSION HIS MAMA TOLD HIM BEFORE SHE DIED. The kid even has the man’s last name. Dude, Google much?
Dead weight like that abounds as characters that serve no dramatic purpose are introduced and a pause for a Stokley Williams concert — augmenting the silky, romantic R&B that laces the score (Keith Sweat was a producer) — delays new “secrets” that are kept when Torrance, who has health issues, meets a nurse (Destinee Monét) when a morning jog goes wrong.
“Fate is totally in control, I’m just here for a ride” is just a line of dialogue, not an editing strategy. This lump needed more shaping in the screenwriting/workshopping process, for starters. The final cut (IMDB suggests it was even longer at one time) is dawdling and lifeless.
White may be rock steady in the middle of all this. But with every new “secret” Jack springs on Lisa, all the way into the third act, each one to be brushed off without dramatic measure being taken of it, one can sense the eye-rolls that were merited, even if he was too polite to do that on set.
Rating: unrated, PG-ish
Cast: Michael Jai White, Lisa Arrindell, Dominique Wilson, Tre Ryan, Denzell Dandridge and Destinee Monét
Credits: Scripted and directed by Tamera Hill. A Hidden Gems Entertainment release in AMC theaters
Running time: 1:46
Movie Nation 
Youre a white man what do know about black life… Or how we handle our family issues…. stick to white folk stuff judge yall shit… thank you!!
Yeah, I’m reviewing an amateurish soap opera of a movie starring a favorite B-movie star, not a culture. But thanks.
You walked into a faith-based melodrama starring MICHAEL JAI WHITE and spent the whole time mad it wasn’t something else. That’s not critique—that’s a mismatch in expectations.
Calling it “soap opera” like that’s automatically a flaw is lazy. That structure has been a staple in storytelling for decades, especially in Black cinema and TV. It’s built on emotion, relationships, and escalation—not everything is supposed to move like a thriller.
The “Google much?” comment is where it really falls apart. Stories don’t run on perfect real-world logic—they run on drama. If characters always made the most efficient, rational decisions, you wouldn’t have a movie, you’d have a checklist.
And dismissing moments like the Stokley performance as “dead weight” just shows a lack of understanding of tone and audience. That’s not filler—that’s atmosphere, culture, and pacing for the people the film is actually speaking to.
Even the jab at the director felt unnecessary. There’s a difference between critiquing craft and just being dismissive. One adds value, the other just sounds condescending.
At the end of the day, this reads less like a breakdown of the film and more like frustration that it didn’t fit a specific lens. Not every movie is made for the same audience—or the same expectations.
It’s pandering piffle, poorly plotted, archly executed. If you don’t see a series of chapter and verse “Here’s where it went wrong” you not only have NO taste or discernment. Your analytical reading skills lack a little certain something as well. It’s “faith-friendly,” not “faith-based.” People who make big mistakes invoke God as a “get me out of this mess” card. No preaching, no real morality. Or did you miss the dying guy who lies to his new lady friend, marries and impregnates her and dies before she knows what’s happened? It’s crap, more concerned with makeup, music and servicing the many producers in the credits than with dramatic entertainment value. I guess your embrace of “soap operas” says it all.