My Murder

I recorded this when it was first screened and have just watched it. I was actually quite disturbed by this portrait of urban life in sink estate South London. The lack of opportunity and the warped hierarchies that emerge in an environment like this are chilling. I disagree with the other reviewer here in that what happened here was an evil act and the perpetrators dispatched their victim in a calculated manner, there is no excuse or reason for this apart from machismo and misplaced pride, he's certainly not insane, no doubt a nasty personality disorder, but mad no! The Dannys of this world have no place in society.

I think the docudrama was well crafted, and the acting superb, the most sinister character of the lot was Samantha, the immature impulsive girl that played games that ultimately went terribly wrong. In her mind the boy Shaki went from plaything to pawn without a second thought. There is a lot in this piece that is open to interpretation. To agree with the other reviewer, like him I'm sure this scenario has been and will be repeated (albeit with less tragic circumstances) all over the UK.

Am I a narrow minded Brit, no I'm not, however I am repulsed by gang culture as it destroys communities and takes lives as demonstrated here, there are also the others, the people that watched Shaki being killed in their garden, the old lady in the lift, the frightened people on the bus, all people affected by this blight.

I don't know what the answer is, there are gangs in every urban area and tragedies such as this occurring, however I do think programmes such as this one do raise awareness and get people thinking

It's a real shame someone couldn't make something more substantial and important out of this ... I mean they've managed to take an issue about many things - youth, poverty, society, mentality, anger - and turn it into nothing more than the documentation of some black kid being killed.

My first issue is with the narration. Why is it there? He's dead. Is he talking to us from beyond the grave? If so, he's got a pretty muted perspective on things - I mean you would think he'd have more to say concerning his current state than simply who he is and what happened to him. WE ALREADY KNOW. And if we don't we get to know through watching the actual film playing before our very faces. You can't just DO narration, not anymore. It needs to be within some sort of context. If he's so desperate to tell his story that he must travel to this plane of reality and narrate a film then more needs to be said beyond the painfully obvious. Trite things like this sap a film's intrigue and disengage the audience.

My second issue is with the characterisations. An 18 year old kid who goes out of his way to kill a 15 year old, who may or may not be seeing his girlfriend (the 15 year old kid who definitely didn't know she wasn't single), is BROKEN. He is not an evil, brooding antagonist, he's insane in the membrane and that needs to be addressed ... and if he just so happens not to be, then THAT needs to be addressed; the fact that he's grown into that way of thinking. The point that's clearly being missed in all of this is that there's a "Shakilus Townsend" case almost every other week. It happens WAY too often to just be turned into a 'simple-Simon' murder story, since it's made obvious to be a much bigger issue than that. It's shrunken when you treat a character like Danny's so broad and generically.

Ultimately, watching this film, you get the sense that all the research done prior to making it was in the reading of THE SUN's article ("Honey trap girl is found guilty"). I mean it's almost as if they didn't actually talk to the Mother. We know no more than we already did and that's really strange when you not only have the Mother on hand but all seven of the convicted caught and locked up. I'm certain none of THOSE kids were approached during the making of this film - how laughably amateur!

This was the one chance to enlighten an audience of angry, narrow minded Brits repulsed by gang culture, so that we don't continue to ignoring or even try to blitz it but embrace and attempt to fix it.

Very lazy filmmaking and the poor treatment of a case like this. Shakilus Townsend and many other murdered black, British teenagers deserve better.

This is not really a review, but more a question to the other two reviewers...You do know this "movie" is based on real life events? This actually happened? The reason for it was exactly to show the gang culture in London and also to show how this boy, who was trying to turn his life around and move away from gangs, was set up in a "honeytrap" by a young female and that ultimately led to his death. The reason for the narrative is to speak to people about his life and what was going on at the time.

This film really touched me. With all the violence, gang culture and knife crime, more (much more) needs to be done for and with the young people of today's society to help them see that it's not the way to go.