Honey (2003)

Honey is a sexy, tough music video choreographer who shakes up her life after her mentor gives her an ultimatum: sleep with him or be blacklisted within their industry.

Director:

Bille Woodruff

Writers:

Alonzo Brown, Kim Watson

Stars:

Jessica Alba, Mekhi Phifer, Romeo Miller

8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jessica Alba	...	Honey Daniels
Mekhi Phifer	...	Chaz
Romeo Miller	...	Benny (as Lil' Romeo)
Joy Bryant	...	Gina
David Moscow	...	Michael Ellis
Lonette McKee	...	Mrs. Daniels
Zachary Isaiah Williams	...	Raymond
Christian Monzon	...	Bar Customer
Al Shearer	...	Bar Customer
Jull Weber	...	Joey
Laurieann Gibson	...	Katrina (as Laurie Ann Gibson)
O'Neal McKnight	...	Katrina's Friend (as O'Neal McNight)
Kevin Duhaney	...	Otis
William Omar Tobar	...	Beat Boxer
Ivan 'Flipz' Velez	...	Street Dancer

Storyline

Honey Daniels is a 22-year-old, sexy, tough-minded, part-black, part-Latina hip-hop dancer in New York's East Harlem who dreams of making it big as a music video choreographer. She teaches hip-hop dancing at a local youth center and encourages the local kids to attend to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. When luck shines on Honey in the form of a famous music video director, named Michael, who casts her in one music video, she's encouraged to make the transition from dancer to choreographer. But Honey's sudden success comes with a price when Michael refuses to take "no" for an answer to his sexual advances and then tries to sabotage her career by blackballing her out of the business.

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Plot Keywords:

dancer | choreographer | dancing | hip hop | one word title | 

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Taglines:

Her dream. Her terms.

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Genres:

Drama | Music | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for drug content and some sexual references

Details

Official Sites:

UIP [France] Universal.

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 December 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cukercek

Filming Locations:

Lower Bay Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$18,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$12,856,040, 7 December 2003, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$30,222,640, 16 February 2004

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Marc Platt Productions, NuAmerica Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The tagline was changed from "Her Dream, Her Terms" to "Her Dreams, Her Terms".

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Goofs

When Honey is distributing posters with her father, as the camera pans out after they put up the poster you can see "Queen Video" on a sign across the street, indicating not New York City but Queen St. W in Toronto.

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Quotes

[in a juvenile detention centre]
Honey: You know your lil homies that have always got your back?
Benny: Yea
Honey: Have any of them come to visit you?
[Benny looks around very disappointed]
Honey: Yea, you just think about that!

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Connections

Followed by Honey 2 (2011)

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Soundtracks

Closer
Written by Goapele Mohlabane, Anthony Anderson, Michael Aaborg
Performed by Goapele
Courtesy of Skyblaze Recordings

User Reviews

well-intentioned but silly film

Credit `Honey' with at least having its heart in the right place – even if its brain isn't always so easy to find. The ever sunny and optimistic Honey Daniels holds down two jobs in her increasingly hectic life – a bartender by night and a hip hop dance instructor by day. She has hopes of one day appearing in a music video, a dream that comes true when she catches the eye of a big time producer named Michael Ellis. Not only is Honey a smash in her first video appearance, but Michael immediately hires her as choreographer for one of his projects. As is typical in these strive-and-succeed tales, Honey soon discovers that success is not all that it's cracked up to be when Michael reveals his true colors, setting up conditions for her continued employment that she hadn't quite counted on (in other words, `put out or pull out'). But the always-undaunted Honey is not about to be knocked down that easily. She uses this little setback to start thinking less about herself and more about the street kids whom she sees turning into drug dealers and gangsters right before her rose-colored eyes. Filled with a righteous zeal and determination, she rallies the neighborhood to raise money for a new dance studio that can get the youngsters off the street, channel their energies in a more positive direction, and turn their lives around.

Only the most Scrooge-like curmudgeon could object to the positive, laudatory, pull-yourself-up-by–the-bootstraps message the film is trying to convey, and one would have to be downright inhuman not to feel uplifted by the final dance sequence. But good intentions and noble aspirations do not, in and of themselves, make for a quality film, and `Honey' is a long way from fitting that bill. The movie wants to be taken seriously as a realistic view of urban life but very little of what we see ever rings true, starting with Honey herself who, with her invariably perky demeanor, seems like a cross between Little Mary Sunshine and Mother Teresa in form fitting jeans and matching halter top. Everything that happens to her – from her meteoric rise in the music video world to her purchase of an empty store for her new dance studio to the benefit performance she and her dancers stage to raise the money for the project – all come about way too easily and with virtually no noticeable effort on her part. We never believe for a moment that any of this would happen in this way in the real world. Thus, `Honey' is really little more than an urban fairy tale, fine for children, I suppose, but not of much use for adults with a more pragmatic understanding of how life actually works.

Jessica Alba is no great shakes as an actress, though she has an infectious smile and a bubbly demeanor that work well on screen. But it is Zachary Williams, as the adorable, gap-toothed eight-year-old Raymond, who steals the show. Now that is one hell of an endearing little kid.