Ballast, which was made in rural Mississippi with a small cast of non-professional actors, most of them African-American, begins with Lawrence (Micheal J. Smith, Sr.), who is discovered sitting in his living room in shock, with the body of his twin brother, a suicide, lying in bed in the other room. For a while, the movie cuts back and forth between Lawrence's sad story and the troubles of twelve-year-old James (JimMyron Ross) and his indulgent single mother Marlee (Tarra Riggs), without at first making it clear how their lives are connected. Bored and lonely, James hooks up with an older group of drug dealers and begins making drops for them on his bike. He also acquires a gun and begins seriously acting out, at one point barging in on Lawrence in his home and robbing him, though Lawrence is so far lost in his depressive misery that it feels a little off applying so active a verb as "robbing" to anything that could be done to him; sticking a gat in his face is like yelling at a dead dog to heel. Eventually, things go very wrong with James and his new friends, and as the increasingly desperate Marlee begins to flail out looking for a way to keep herself and her son safe, the central trio collide with a bang.
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