‘Escape from Pretoria.’

Since the Harry Potter franchise ended in 2011 Daniel Radcliffe has put the wizardry behind him in such movies as The Woman in Black, Now You See Me 2 and Greg McLean’s Jungle.

In the Adelaide-shot thriller Escape from Pretoria, which opened in the Us and UK last weekend, he plays South African freedom fighter and political prisoner Tim Jenkin.

Jenkin and fellow activist Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) were branded terrorists for their involvement in covert anti-apartheid operations for the African National Congress in 1978.

Incarcerated in Pretoria’s maximum security prison, Jenkin, Lee and fellow inmate Leonard Fontaine (Mark Leonard Winter) escaped after months of meticulous surveillance and ingenuity before authorities were able to strengthen the prison’s security defences.

Ian Hart plays co-conspirator Denis Goldberg with Miss Fisher’s Nathan Page as Mongo, the hot-headed leader of the prison guards.

Momentum Pictures launched the UK-Australian co-production...