Escape from Pretoria review – brilliantly tense B-movie thriller

The true and remarkable story of the 1979 Pretoria prison escape has been refashioned as a relentlessly entertaining B-movie yarn starring Daniel Radcliffe, an actor whose increasingly weird post-Potter career has seen him playing roles further and further away from his iconic spell as the famous boy wizard. Here he’s near unrecognisable as real life apartheid-era activist Tim Jenkin, a ANC member who – alongside friend and collaborator Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) – is sentenced to a long stint behind bars for distributing anti-establishment pamphlets.

But Jenkin, it turns out, is also something of a genius. After noticing the style of locks implemented throughout the prison, he hatches a brilliant scheme to escape using a series of makeshift keys, built from wood collected from the prison workshop. Through a process of trial and error, and years spent concealing his keys from the guards, Jenkin is able to construct an entire set for the seemingly endless number of metal doors leading out of the prison and to freedom.

The unpretentious title keys you into the sort of pulpy entertainment that Escape from Pretoria aims and succeeds to be. Though there’s a sense that events have been fabricated in order to increase the drama and tension, the film remains an effective and respectful tribute to the men and the movement that inspired it. I was reminded somewhat of the more recent films of Werner Herzog, especially his Rescue Dawn, which starred Christian Bale as a prisoner staging an equally elaborate escape during the Vietnam war.

First-time director Francis Annan makes use of his small budget with inventive camera work and in the design of meticulous and purposely repetitive set-pieces that are often agonising to watch. The most memorable sees Jenkin using a makeshift broom handle and some chewing gum to try and pick up a key accidentally dropped outside his cell. Every time he gets close, it doesn’t quite stick, however – and, of course, the sound of footsteps approaching along the corridor is only getting louder and louder…

Radcliffe, who has followed a similar path to Robert Pattinson in an attempt to shed the skin of his most famous character, is surprisingly effective as Jenkin. There is little to no characterisation in the film, which by normal standards might be considered a fault. But there is something oddly refreshing about Escape from Pretoria‘s singular focus. In the abandonment of unnecessary secondary storylines, the mechanics of the escape are allowed to come to the forefront. Radcliffe plays his character like a normal human being with a modest gift, selling us Jenkin’s scrappy determinism without overdoing the heroism. The supporting cast, which includes Ian Hart as real life activist Denis Goldberg, are effective in small parts.

Part of the film’s success is in its frequent reestablishing of the same spaces, so when it comes time to escape it’s as if we ourselves are trying to flee from the prison’s murky corridors, one lock at a time. The result is a film that’s genuinely tense and nerve-racking for all its 104 minutes. There is fun to be had in learning how the prison environment itself is utilised to aid the escape. The garden becomes a place to bury and hide keys, for example. Later, caught with part of a key, Jenkin must improvise its purpose in order to deceive a guard. His excuse is so brilliantly bad you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Yes, Escape from Pretoria is basically a two hour movie about a beardy Daniel Radcliffe crafting wooden keys and unlocking doors with those keys. But this is a clever and old-fashioned slice of pulp that does what films with far bigger budgets and huge stars are often unable to do: sustain a palpable sense of tension from beginning to end. It’s Radcliffe’s best post-Potter movie yet.