But the thought of sitting idle, waiting out the sentence? Unthinkable. As a viewer, I genuinely wasn’t sure who to side with half the time the threat of failure looms too terribly large. Both in the performances and in the writing, you can see them struggling and desperately hoping the other will see sense and stop their foolishness. As an avid fan of that franchise, I was surprised that I didn’t think of that once while watching the film not even with Radcliffe bedecked in glasses! They work wonderfully together as two people fighting for the same thing but with opposing methods. Curiously, this film reunites him with Ian Hart ( Mary Queen of Scots), a fellow Harry Potteralum. I continue to be impressed with Radcliffe. And the actors – led by Daniel Radcliffe ( Beast of Burden) – do deliver seamless performances that evoke an almost uncomfortable physicality. The sound design, mixing, and editing are just as much stars of this thing as the actors themselves. The silent, wordless moments are filled with heavy, panicked breathing and the echoes of even the smallest sound. (L-R) Ian Hart as Denis Goldberg, Daniel Radcliffe as Tim Jenkin and Daniel Webber as Stephen Lee in the drama/thriller ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA, a Momentum Pictures release. These conferences drift a little towards the idealistic and away from the hyper-realism that permeates the rest of the movie. This is admirable on one hand, but on the other, it means that the film occasionally does a fair share of telling/not showing regarding their motivation for escape in the first place. When we’re reminded of it through dialogue, the protagonists debate what they’re fighting for and argue over the morality of an escape attempt. The inmates’ perspective is strictly adhered to and the film doesn’t cheat by cutting away, beyond the prison walls. Granted, it’s effective when used, but, like a lot of VO, there’s not much consistency to it and the story would have been better off either without it entirely or with more of it at more consistent intervals, including the ending to match the intro. The film bears few flaws, but among them is the spotty use of voiceover (VO). The pacing is excellent and builds masterfully to every moment of tension. Even when you think there can’t possibly be any more nail-biting scenes left, where the tension cannot be prolonged any further, another twist follows that still manages to work. Those moments happen often they are the foundation and thrust of the film. Moments that shine most effectively are small, crucial beats that play out in real-time or – even better – when they feel agonizingly stretched across full sequences, all in the best possible way. The film opens with a brutal, sweeping punch of archival footage to set the stage and offer swift context, then pivots into a far more intimate tone. Daniel Radcliffe as Tim Jenkin in the drama/thriller ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA, a Momentum Pictures release. Despite the many and vast differences between Escape from Pretoria and The Great Escape(1963), they share something of a similar spirit you will find yourself engrossed in the characters’ plight whether you know the history or not. Strangely, I was reminded of Lincoln(2012), in that the story here is far more of a specific moment in specific lives, rather than a comprehensive historical examination of South Africa’s apartheid days or the complexity of the politics therein. This is not an expert delve into race relations, nor a daring exposé or keen look into history. Not quite.īased on Tim Jenkin’s book Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Central Prison , the film does follow Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber), two anti-apartheid activists, and their attempt to escape the white-only Pretoria Local Prison in 1979, but the film’s primary interest and focus is the intimate, moment-to-moment suspense, which makes up the bulk of the story with little time to spare for much else. The trailer gave me the impression that the film would be brutal: heavy on physical and psychological torture a deep look into the conditions of the time, regarding apartheid and then a harrowing escape attempt. While I didn’t come to Escape from Pretoria with an especially keen knowledge of the central figures, I did bring with me a hefty amount of apprehension. Escape from Pretoria (Francis Annan, 2020) 3 out of 4 stars.
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