Honeytrap

This was based on a real case of inter gang rivalry and a heartless honey trap to get one of the members. I remember how heartless the whole thing was. This film takes the basic premise and turns it into something altogether more human. Jessica Sula plays fifteen year Layla. She has come from Trinidad to live with her maternal mother in Brixton, South London.

Once there she starts to make new 'friends' at her school. They are mostly the sort who would be considered a 'bad influence' and she struggles to fit in. She does catch the eye of Alpha male and rapper Troy (Lucien Laviscount) and she drawn in caught by his macho charms. There is also Sean – who is an outsider within the group – he seems to be looked down on because of a perceived femininity however, he falls for Layla. This is something that will not be tolerated. This is though a story of lust, jealousy, anime, bullying and the need to belong.

The subjects are all dealt with in a responsible way and everyone puts in great performances. Jessica Sula is particularly good playing the out of water, new kid on the block who has a good heart but will not let her head rule it. The location shooting is all authentic too and that gives this much more credibility. This is a film that did not garner that much attention on release and I was not expecting great things and I have to say I was extremely pleasantly surprised – one that is easy to recommend.

Read the good reviews but found the film stylistically confusing.sometimes a true life TV discovery channel reconstruction ,sometimes a TV melodrama with way too much use of music ,and on occasions a drama documentary with the camera and sound just hanging around. Lead actress held it all together with a spectacularly varied and deep

range of facial expressive work. Hated to be disappointed . Needed a more cultural base to give it heart in a community. And more cinematic approach ..too much use of music to emphasise emotionally what we should see within the shots and structure...and too many Dream sequences from the lead character which are an easy way out to character development...needed to come from within the character and/or mis en scene.

This movie is predictable and plays on typical stereotypes. The storyline is badly constructed and lacks any creativity. Though I accept the events were inspired by true events, the writer/director struggles to piece to together a coercive plot.

I expect the movie was created on a low budget and that is the only positive I can take!

The IMDb description somewhat ruins the climax to this movie, the storyline which is explained in the films description doesn't occur until the final 10 minutes of the movie. Honeytrap is a story of bullying, manipulation and the struggle a young girl living in London faces while trying to be accepted somewhere that she doesn't belong.

Jessica Sula plays Layla, a 15 year old girl who has returned to London to live with her mother after spending her previous 10 years living in Trinidad & Tobago with her grandparents. She is forced to attend a poor school and is immediately picked on for being different, she dresses different and speaks different and immediately tries to change who she is. She meets a local rapper and stars in his video shoot, he uses her and shows her stop-start attention to which she gets carried away with and falls in love with him. Little does she know that he is only using her to make another boy jealous and to massage his own ego and fulfil his own selfish desires.

Jessica Sula gives the performance of the movie, her acting is very impressive and her character is especially remarkable. She connects with her role very well and gives a perfectly convincing performance. She plays a naïve, scared young girl living in a strange city, trying to adapt to a chilling way of life. The majority of the supporting cast do a respectable job in making the story feel gritty but Jessica Sula outshines them all. This is a low budget, independent film and this needs to be remembered when viewing. Many of the faces you see you will not recognise and the director is very new to the industry. It does have its negatives, some scenarios feel forced and clichéd and more backstory and character development would have been nice to see. This film had the opportunity to push more boundaries to create more depth to the story but with a run time of 90 minutes it failed to do so. Despite the negatives I have, Honeytrap had many things which I liked and overall I will remember this movie as a positive.

Honeytrap is not a film you should watch if you are looking for an easy watching film. It is dark and gritty; it has some very powerful, hard hitting scenes and its aim is to open its viewer's eyes to situations that are all too common. It is loosely based around true events that occurred in 2008 and this makes it all the more depressing. Young girls can be so naïve and easily influenced by older boys who they wrongly look up to and admire, Honeytrap is a chilling look at how this can happen and its devastating consequences.

7/10

Layla is a 15 year old girl who has just come 'home' to her mother in Brixton having spent the last ten years in Trinidad with her grandparents. A nice lad, Shaun, takes an immediate shine to her and Layla likes him too, if only as a friend. Instead, she falls for a local Z-lister Troy, who doesn't want her, but she can't have anyone else. The title of the film probably suggests this isn't going to end well. This is social realism at its best. Superbly acted. Emotional. And ultimately sad. Not your typical popcorn movie, but a must see 8 out of ten