Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Webber, Ian Hart, Mark Leonard Winter
Intro:
More of a comforting afternoon watch than a taut political thriller…
Set during the Apartheid years in South Africa, this is the incredible story of Jim Jenkins, Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris; three white political prisoners who made a daring bid for freedom from the confines of a maximum security prison. What makes it all the more incredible is that it’s completely true and, to crank it up to 11, based on a book by Jenkins, written whilst he was on the run as a fugitive of the law.
Filmed in South Australia, Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber (The Dirt, Danger Close) play Jenkins and Lee respectively. In a swift but tense opening, the two men are arrested and sentenced for distributing anti-Apartheid propaganda via pamphlet bomb. It’s not so much the very small explosive device that they’ve used in public that raises the ire of the Law, but the fact that they are seen as traitors of their own race. At one point, Jenkins is described as ‘the white Mandela’ and there’s not a spot of praise in the comparison. Yes, it’s a clunky bit of dialogue, but it gets its point across.
Once inside Pretoria prison, which has a whole building dedicated to white political prisoners, Lee and Jenkins make alliances with Denis Goldberg (Ian Hart), who was put on trial alongside the aforementioned Mandela. Whilst Goldberg was said to have played a large part in the escape, he takes a backseat for most of the narrative. In fact, so does Jenkins and Lee’s fellow escapee, Moumbaris, who is replaced by the fictional Leonard (Mark Leonard Winter, Measure for Measure). It’s a shame that Goldberg is pushed to the margins as Leonard is, unfortunately, a facsimile of a character with neither a background nor motive.
With all the main characters having been introduced, the political potential of Escape from Pretoria buckles its safety belt with Hart’s Goldberg. This is to be a film about the escape and little else. Director Francis Annan, who co-wrote the screenplay and makes his feature length debut with Pretoria, has put together a tight little package wrapped up in nervous sweat. For example, as Jenkins fashions keys out of wood (you read that right) and tests them behind the guards’ back, we can practically taste his fear. However, we quickly catch on to the fact that the oppressive regime, identified as one overweight guard and one skinny angry man, isn’t that scary.
Elsewhere, there’s that niggling feeling that most of the characters, including Lee and Goldberg, are there simply to function as a Greek chorus to remind the audience of what a great man Jenkins is.
That aside, Radcliffe gives a strong performance as the man with a gift for wood, his accent only wobbling in times of heightened emotion. From farting corpses to men with guns drilled into their hands, it’s been enjoyable to watch that Radcliffe’s career doesn’t seem to have any discernible path and let’s hope he continues to keep us guessing.
More of a comforting afternoon watch than a taut political thriller, Escape from Pretoria is still worth digging into if only as a testament to what humankind can do when they’re forced into isolation. It feels kind of timely in a weird way.
