#Escape from pretoria qartulad movie

Jenkin hatches a plan to whittle wooden facsimiles of the keys to every door separating them from the outside world - an almost naively simple scheme that necessitates a complex network of hiding places and bluffs, as vindictive guards begin to suspect something is afoot. Banished to the vast prison complex of Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital, Jenkin and Lee are protectively counseled by veteran liberal political prisoner Denis Goldberg (British veteran Ian Hart, giving the character a geezer-y air), who advises them to keep their heads down and to serve their time with dignity as “prisoners of conscience.” The youngsters, countering that they are instead prisoners of war, immediately set about an escape plan regardless. Adams’ workaday screenplay, the actor’s signature anxious-earnest mien is leaned on a lot here, as is his overly explanatory voiceover, which provides a broad primer on apartheid for any uninformed viewers, along with a reminder that “freedom and equality should be fought for at all costs.”įor Jenkin, that cost is a 12-year prison sentence, handed down after he and his best friend Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber, tersely charismatic in a thin part) were caught planting a leaflet bomb to distribute ANC protest flyers in central Cape Town. Given the limited backstory filled in by Annan and L.H. Sporting a squirrelly shag wig and a valiantly attempted but wayward Cape Town accent, Radcliffe plays Jenkin, a middle-class sociology student turned underground activist for the African National Congress, with his own brand of puppyish but righteous commitment. Meanwhile, it may struggle to find much of a fanbase in its own country of setting, where audiences might reasonably wonder why at least one South African actor couldn’t have been cast in a principal role. The casting of Daniel Radcliffe as Jenkin lends it some marquee appeal, but this still feels like efficient VOD fodder, sure to age as memorably as “Stander,” that other blandly internationalized biographical romp pulled from the same passage of South African history. The last 30-odd years have seen such a wealth of diverse, resonant personal histories emerge from the ashes of apartheid - not least that of the actual, not-white Mandela - that “Escape from Pretoria” could well have missed its moment entirely.Īs it is, it’s been done cheaply and (sort of) cheerfully as an Australian production by British writer-director Francis Annan, focusing heavily on suspense mechanics as if to modestly understate its factual heft. It’s surprising that it’s taken this long to reach the screen, given how sveltely his gripping story fits into a genre-film uniform. He is evidently based on the Egyptian-born French national, Alex Moumbaris, with whom the men actually broke out, although it isn’t clear why his character has been fictionalised and the others not.Jenkin’s book of the same title was published in 1987, when he was still living as a fugitive from nominal justice in London.

Inside, Jenkin and Lee meet another political prisoner and future escaper: Frenchman Leonard Fontaine (a slightly hammy turn from Mark Leonard Winter). Their prison is tough, but as they are white, it is not as tough it might have been. With long hair and straggly beard, Daniel Radcliffe plays Jenkin and Daniel Webber plays his fellow ANC activist Stephen Lee, imprisoned in 1978 for their “leaflet bombs” – firecracker-type devices left in the street which send blizzards of leaflets flying. The film has something pleasingly traditional about it, with tense nailbiting moments, slab-faced guards, and touches of The Great Escape and Papillon.

#Escape from pretoria qartulad movie

The rather amazing true story of the white ANC activist Tim Jenkin and his audacious escape from Pretoria Prison in apartheid-era South Africa is told in this capable and well-carpentered movie from British film-maker Francis Annan, adapted from Jenkin’s own book.