![]() ![]() This practical nature made everything that more tactile as they jammed those wooden keys in and you sit there wondering if this would be the time it breaks. Putting aside the fact that this was clearly shot in Australia, they make good use of the practical sets, and what looks like an old jail they were using. The filmmaking behind the scenes is all solid. Because of the small cast, it makes those interactions all the more important because you have nowhere to hide.Įscape From Pretoria does a good job of bringing 1970s South Africa to life. Then we have Daniel Webber, who is playing more of the anchor for the group helping to stop things from spiralling. He has to manage a character that is going through extreme stress with the highs and lows that accompany that. Daniel Radcliffe is, of course, the big-name grab here and he has to a lot of the heavy narrative lifting as he is our point of view character for most of the film. You can feel the tension, see it in everyone’s faces, as the rest of the plan comes together (helped a bit by a lack of security cameras) there is always a guard almost in reach, almost finding their plans.Ī lot of that tension is channelled through the performances of the lead characters in what is a relatively small cast when compared to other similar films. If they are caught, their whole plan is gone, and any hope of escape vanishes. There is one moment where a key jams in a lock while a guard is coming where everything hangs in that one moment. At any moment someone who you don’t want to overhear could be listing, something your plan needed could fall apart, or at any moment a guard could arrive. Where Escape From Pretoria excels is in its moments of tension, which when your movie is set in prison can be found nearly anywhere. They dream of escaping, but how do you do that when you are locked behind several feet of steel?ĭaniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast bring to life these moments of tension that had me on the edge of my seat. While in Pretoria jail they meet Denis Goldberg (Ian Hart) who was put on trial with Nelson Mandela and fellow prisoner Leonard Fontaine (Mark Leonard Winter). One day after a successful campaign, they are captured by the police and sentenced to twelve and eight years in the all-white political prisoner’s prison in Pretoria. It is here where we are introduced to Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) who work setting up leaflet bombs for the African National Congress or ANC. So to set the scene, we open in the heart of apartheid South Africa with accrual footage of the time. Well, today we get to explore both of these with Escape From Pretoria. As well as this, I have seen a lot of prison break films in my time, some fictional, some real, some ‘we think this is how they did it’, and I have always found them fascinating. One of the things I like the most about cinema is when they let me know of stories that I have previously been unaware of. ![]()
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