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. Can they succeed?Įscape From Pretoria is not like any other escape film, as it is totally based in reality, but the tension that Radcliffe deliverers keeps you on the edge of your seat right to the end credits.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. However, they are under constant surveillance and random cell searches and Jenkins suffers with his nerves. With careful observation, Jenkin’s makes copies of the guard’s keys and with trial and error and ingenious solutions to their problems they hope for the day of freedom. You have to push it all the way in, mon ami.įrom then on it is mission go. Jenkins and Lee also meet French prisoner Leonard Fontaine ( Mark Leonard Winter, The Dressmaker, The Boy Castaways) who wants out of the prison just as much as Jenkins and Lee and it is Jenkins that comes up with the plan to make wooden keys to get out of the cells and throug h the many gates to freedom. Before they get to prison Lee takes an opportunity to escape, he soon finds out that was a bad mistake, and they are taken to prison.Įach get a single cell that has two doors, the first a solid 3″ metal door and then the cell bars that also locks behind them and the guard Mongo ( Nathan Page, Noise) loves laying down the laws to the letter.ĭay 01 they learn the ins and outs of prison life when they meet fellow inmate and ANC member Denis Goldberg ( Ian Hart, Enemy of the State, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) who helps them out with a tour of the prison and all the things you need to know about surviving. The judge comes down hard on the pair, giving Lee an eight-year sentence and the more proactive Jenkins twelve years in the Praetorian prison for white conscientious prisoners. We see Tim and his frantic girlfriend Daphne ( Ratidzo Mambo, The Family Exchange) smuggling his money to him and telling him not to appeal. But they are too slow and are caught by the secret police and branded traitors by their fellow whites. Two of these political activists are Tim Jenkins and Stephen Lee, who in 1978 are planting leaflet bombs to spread the word of the ANC and to fight the white regime. Not all whites believed in this regime, they believed in equality of all and some of them joined the ANC (African National Congress) led by the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. The film starts showing the violence of the Apartheid regime and a narration by lead actor ( Radcliffe) about how the minority white population rule and the natives are less than second class citizens and are beaten, shot and more.
#Escape from pretoria key movie#
Writer/director Francis Annan (Woyzeck) gets his first chance at a mainstream movie with a well known star who is now growing up and dispelling his early stardom, taking on grittier roles, as in the true life story of Tim Jenkin ( Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter (Films), Now You See Me 2, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead), Stephen Lee ( Daniel Webber, Teenage Kicks, Australia Day) and Leonard Fontaine ( Mark Leonard Winter, One Eyed Girl, The Dressmaker) who caused a big stir in the early 1970’s in South Africa and its vicious Apartheid regime.
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