For the most part, Escape From Pretoria works well, but it's a shame Annan didn't take more time to dig into the ordinary men who made this extraordinary escape.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2021

We haven't had a good prison escape drama in years. Escape from Pretoria isn't perfect, but with an effective pace and gripping sequences, it works.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 23, 2021

Like those classic prison movies. [Full review in Spanish]

| Oct 26, 2020

Worst Poster of the Year Award winner. In the final stretch of the movie we enjoy very good sequences that keep us alert at all times. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 24, 2020

Escape From Pretoria offers solid performances and clever filmmaking but lacks tension and complexity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 11, 2020

That caper is skilfully set against a prison environment shaped by racist policy, shown here to be a ladder climbed most easily by the cruel and manipulative.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2020

...the film is more of a deafening flatline than a racing pulse.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Jun 26, 2020

Radcliffe gives it everything under a ratty wig and peering out from very '70s spectacles, and almost makes you forget these issues. You really want to see him break out, and he eventually does...

| Original Score: 6/10 | May 29, 2020

The pleasure here is in the fine detail, and Annan makes sure we feel every scrape of chisel on wood. The characterizations are not deep, but that's part of the genre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 27, 2020

The fact that the protagonists are white activists in a society dominated by segregation of the black race and it wasn't a dialogue that was given any substance is a failure. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Apr 13, 2020

Annan knows how to grip, his story accelerating with a jittery rhythm, while Radcliffe's eternal earnestness fits the bill neatly.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 18, 2020

Excessive narration and clichéd dialogue distract from any potential for tension, meaning that Escape From Pretoria only realises its potential in the final minutes.

| Mar 15, 2020

Tense political prison thriller has some violence, language.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2020

What ensues is a familiar prison-escape tale with not enough story or tension to really grip.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2020

Although telling a true story - with a shaggy Daniel Radcliffe playing Tom Jenkin, jailed in Pretoria in 1978 for anti-apartheid activism - Francis Annan's film lacks the rounded characters of the best prison dramas.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2020

Escape From Pretoria - also set in South Africa, also based on a real-life story - is, sadly, also a fail.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 10, 2020

It's the nervy camera, hugging the characters at hip height, the better to scrutinise each locked barrier to freedom, that most successfully builds the tension.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 9, 2020

I highly recommend this film to everyone but especially those who love biopics and prison thrillers. I think it's important for people to learn this piece of history.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 7, 2020

They really don't set up the characters... I wanted to know more about those characters and less about whittling keys.

| Mar 7, 2020

I did like this film a bit. It is more linear... but it is a good performance for Daniel Radcliffe especially.

| Mar 7, 2020