The movie starts with an introduction of the political events taking place in South Africa during that time, more precisely the Apartheid. "Escape from Pretoria" is based on the prison escape of two political captives from Pretoria Central Prison in South Africa in 1979. Francis Annan's "Escape from Pretoria", while flawed in some areas, gives legitimate thrills and keeps you excited all throughout, as you follow the trio of men on the quest of freedom. Not two weeks after "Guns Akimbo" Daniel Radcliffe rewards us with yet another great performance, this time in a tightly made, old-school B-like jailbreak thriller set against a historically true background. In the end, you might just say, it does what it says on the tin. That said, this is still edge-of-the-seat stuff, very skillfully done, and the performances throughout are first-rate. It's a very compact little movie though it's unlikely to cause Bresson's "A Man Escaped", "The Shawshank Redemption" or "Papillion" cause for concern. Ian Hart and Mark Leonard Winter are other prisoners in on the plan. Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber are the two young white members of the ANC imprisoned for distributing anti-government propoganda and Francis Annan's film is about how they escaped from Pretoria Prison. It's very exciting while not afraid to show the horrors of the South African prison system at the same time. As the title tells us, it's an escape movie, (obviously), and by their very nature, escape movies usually make for good thrillers and this is no exception. "Escape from Pretoria" will never win any Oscars but this heartfelt, social-conscious thriller, based on a true story and set in a South Africa under Apartheid, is a lot better than I thought it was going to be.
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