Honeytrap (2015)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Let's be realistic.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Ahh the travails of youth, what stupidity kids of a certain generation go through because they feel the need to belong to anything in their small, important lives. Honeytrap follows a 15 year old ex pat from Trinidad staying w/her mother in Blighty as she navigates the treacherous annals of teendom. Watching this as I approach middle age, I winced & fretted over this teen's decisions, I wondered if I would be so dejected & gullible that I wouldn't make the same mistakes. Told & acted w/refreshing honesty, you may hate the journey this film takes you on but ultimately the sobering message is worth the trip.

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.

Many are judging this movie to be another typical British 'gang' movie when this is not what it is at all. Honey Trap is about a beautiful 15 year old girl named Layla who has never known this lifestyle before. Moving over to brixton from Trinidad after living with her grandparents for so long, Layla moves in with her uncaring mother whom she has never really known. She gets sucked into this wonderful yet crappy world where she meets the local handsome rapper Troy who is a bit shifty. Layla is besotted with him. Its her first time in love. She falls so hard, but unfortunately, troy doesn't feel the same way and turns out to be another bad boy. But when troys rival, Sean falls for Layla, troy cannot help but to be jealous and envious and claims Layla as his and his only. In a sad way, Layla sort of likes it. All these beautiful and sad events lead up to one big final tragic one. Give it a chance.

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