Hi, it’s me again. Obsessive Daniel Radcliffe fangirl. I didn’t plan for this to be a blog consisting exclusively of reviews of films with Daniel Radcliffe in them, but we move. Me and boyfriend watched this one on a whim and it was very fun. It’s on Amazon Prime and it’s pretty front and centre at the moment so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Definitely wouldn’t have watched this one alone- at 23 years old I am still inexplicably drawn to all things pink, sparkly, fluffy, prom, etc.

Escape from Pretoria is based on the true story of three political prisoners who escape from a prison in South Africa. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like; I can’t say I’ve ever watched a prison escape film or TV programme before. Although there were a few moments depicting racism in South Africa during the apartheid, the whole issue was largely ignored and there was a lot more focus on the practicalities of escaping from prison, so if you’re looking for something historical with a lot of contextual stuff, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is quite literally purely about the escape, and that’s not a complaint – it was dope. As exciting as the film was, something that bothered me a little was that it’s a little vague how Tim (Daniel Radcliffe) actually manages to execute the whole escape thing. There’s not much explanation of how the flying f*** he manages to make exact copies of about 7 different keys out of wood.

Apart from this though, the film is just really fun to watch. There’s some mad tense parts where Tim is testing out the keys and things keep going wrong which are pretty good set-ups for the final sequence. The tone of the film is not entirely clear; there are parts that I think are meant to be raucously funny that don’t really land because a lot of it is pretty serious. When they wanted me to laugh I unfortunately just didn’t see the funny side because I was too concerned that my beloved Daniel would get caught and I would have a reaction similar to my ugly crying during Jungle. Still, the attempt is there and is a nice little break from all the palm-sweating.

To conclude, you should go and watch it. You really don’t have anything to lose because its very fun and IMO Daniel’s South African accent really isn’t that bad, but who knows – maybe I’m just a huge fangirl.

PS. read about the story behind the film after you watch it; it is pretty interesting.

*watch on Amazon Prime.