There seems to be something about a South African accent that makes it tough for outsiders to pull off.
Yes, before you get all worked up, I am aware that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Blood Diamond was actually ‘Rhodesian’, as he called it, but you get the drift.
That performance landed the Oscar winner a spot on our ‘top five worst movie accents ever’ list. I’m sure he’s thrilled.
He may soon have some stiff competition from a certain Daniel Radcliffe, though, with the former Harry Potter star the leading man in Escape from Pretoria.
When we wrote about the film back in March, we hadn’t heard anybody open their mouths.
I’m not being melodramatic when I say the accents on display in this trailer are horrendous.
For example, local site Critical Hit ran a headline that began with “Assault your ears with the terrible South African accents in this trailer”, and another local site, Fortress of Solitude, says “Escape from Pretoria Provides the Worst Attempts at a South African Accent”.
We’ll head overseas and get a synopsis of the film via Collider:
Daniel Radcliffe stars as Tim Jenkin – a real life ANC activist who was imprisoned in Africa’s maximum security prison Pretoria in the 1970s during the Apartheid.
Along with two imprisoned fellow freedom fighters, played by Daniel Webber and Mark Leonard Winter, Tim escaped on 11th December 1970 using hand-made wooden keys which he crafted whilst incarcerated.
There is no mention of the horrific accents, and Collider goes on to say “the film looks to join the ranks of other great prison escape movies”.
Hmm, I’m not convinced.
Trailer time, and keep your ears primed for the part around the 1:05 mark, where it sounds like somebody is channelling their inner Corne and Twakkie:
Seems odd that they couldn’t find any South African actors for some of those roles.
This one is slated to hit cinemas around the start of March next year, and I may well be giving it a hard pass.
[source:collider]
