In rolling out the Thriller by Francis Annan “Escape from Pretoria” based on the true story of the escape of three prisoners from the maximum security prison in South Africa during apartheid. Despite the sophistication of their plan, the film, according to Julia Siegelman, came out too sketchy.Films about escapes from prison — honored cinematic genre (you may remember became a classic “Moth”, J. Franklin. Shaffner, “Midnight Express” Alan Parker, “Escape from Alcatraz” and don Siegel’s “the Shawshank redemption” Frank Darabont), at the heart of which lies a fundamental problem: if it took a movie, so the escape was successful. Accordingly, the main task of the authors is to make the viewer empathize with the characters and worry about the outcome of their venture, even if from the first shots it is clear that all will end well. In the case of “Escape from Pretoria”, the directorial debut of Francis Annan, it is complicated by the fact that the film is based on his book, the main character, this Tim Jenkin, and anyone can open Wikipedia and read how it was really entertaining and it will be about comparable to seeing the pictures.The film starts in 1978: the VoiceOver and footage Chronicles is available to explain what was the apartheid regime and why two young white South African, Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Steven Lee (Daniel Webber) has decided to join the party the “African national Congress” and fight against racial injustice. Fighting them was the distribution of leaflets in an unusual way — with the help of small explosive devices, throwing hundreds of pieces of paper with propaganda texts like fireworks.Here, apparently, it is assumed to admire the bravery and courage of affluent white boys, but, mindful of the real victims of apartheid, as it is not very good.In place of one of explosions Jenkin and Lee were arrested and received sentences of 12 and 8 years respectively. However, the film won’t be called “Escape from Pretoria”, if they were going to serve these terms in its entirety. Even before the arrival at the prison, the friends decide to flee from it at any cost, and Tim gives promise of his appearing a total of a minute and a half girl (Ratidzo Mambo) “never give up”. In jail they meet the expansive French Leonard (mark Leonard winter), who immediately becomes their accomplice (this fictional collective character replaced the real party escape Alex Moumbaris). Despite the fact that no one does not support them, and the chief authority among political, activist, and colleague of Mandela’s, Denis Goldberg (Ian HART), and did not approve their plan, for reasons practical and ideological, escape plan slowly but surely taking concrete shape.The next��Torah hour of screen time Tim Jenkin grinds wood keys that are appropriate for prison locks, test them in practice, is nervous, if they get stuck in key wells manages to pull them at the last moment, hiding from the guards and so on. The guards, in turn, from time to time remind him and comrades, they are traitors to their race, and the warden (Grant Piro) begins to suspect something, but whenever possible to cheat. The whole ideological background of the film fades into the background (about the horrors of racism is just like rough treatment of the guard with the black janitor), and focuses on the keyholes, the creaking turn of the keys, the echo of steps in the dark corridors, flickering fingers and drops of sweat protruding on the forehead of Daniel Radcliffe. But despite his efforts, inventive camera work (Jeffrey Hall) and intense editing, the film desperately lacks suspense. In the end, when the heroes still break loose, it happens so casually that the only question that remains with the viewer: what, so it was possible?
