Escape from Pretoria (2020)

"Escape from Pretoria" doesn't get to remove "Shawshank Redemption" from the top of "prison escape movies", but I'd say it's over "Shawshank Redemption" at least for one thing: how incredible is the actual escape. Especially since it's a real escape ;)...

In 1979, in the middle of Apartheid in South Africa, two white people, Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, got sentenced to some long years in jail for activism + bombing with anti-segregation pamphlets. Sent to a prison with a section dedicated to political convicts, the first thought seemed naturally how to escape the place. And that's the topic for the entire movie - the elaborate planning of an escape. The only spoiler that I'll give (half of which is in the trailer, the other half in a book), is that the whole action involved wooden keys and passing through 15 doors. At a quick search, it's the only escape for 43 years during the Apartheid from that prison. There was one more, but in the more recent years, after the renovation of the institution and funny enough from its max security wing.

I've seen some criticism on the fact that the movie's losing too much of the social aspect and gets too focused on the action part. The social/political aspect is not missing, but indeed the escape comes on top. After all that's the primary theme of the movie, so I can't understand such criticism. If you want something else, there are options: "Invictus", "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom", etc. We have other problems here. Except the camera work, I found the technical part a bit disappointing for how much potential the subject has. The actors are ok, but there are moments when we have a bit of overacting. And maybe the most 'complex' problem to call it so, is the somehow confusing mingling between what's real and what's invented...

Apparently Tim Jenkin, the brain behind the escape plan contributed directly as a consultant to the production, mostly based on a book with the same name published by him in the '80s, which describes in detail the entire action. In some parts though the movie changes a bit the reality. A third escapee for instance, Alex Moumbaris, is replaced by a fictitious character at least name-wise. It's rather unclear why, especially since when we get to the end we're presented in parallel the real characters and the actors in the movie, minus that guy. But if you search Wikipedia, you can uncover quickly some post-escape biography that's a bit pro-communist, and that gives some room for speculating.

We have a couple more elements in the final escape attempt where luck seem to have a too bigger impact, and some pieces do not fit very well together. You can't make a clear difference between what's real and what's not unless you give a look to the corresponding chapter in the book (easily found online). And when you see what's extra, surprisingly you find out that isn't so much. So, assuming the written material is true to the facts, the outcome is indeed one of the most spectacular prison escapes in the previous century, added that was also a perfectly justified one = overall, this was enjoyable ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5