It's A One Man Show

Buried

Shooting a whole movie about a man buried alive is undeniably an impressive cinematic idea, and director Rodrigo Cortes pulls it off. The entire running time is spent inside a coffin with a man who’s been interred alive. This man is Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) who awakens tied up in total darkness—which means we hear his desperation before we see it. Thumps, scratches, gasps emanate from a black screen as the movie begins…and then Paul finds a lighter and flicks it on, and we become aware of the details of his predicament only as he does. Right of the bat, Cortes makes the audience feel as if they are right there, suffering, with Reynolds. Extreme close-ups of his face help convey the initial claustrophobia, that one can only hope will seize to let up as the movie continues.

What makes the movie interesting is that there are no flashbacks to reveal how he got there. The camera shot does not move off of Reyonld's confined body the entire ninety minutes. The only details as to the who, what, where, when, and why of this 'situation' are only revealed through conversations he has on a cell phone (not his own) he finds in the coffin. We soon learn that he has been kidnapped in Iraq by insurgents, and that he’s not a soldier, but simply a relief worker who was driving a supply truck when the convoy was ambushed.

The movie centers on Paul's frustrated attempts to call for help (Phone is in another language, ouch) reaching only voice mails and uncooperative, dispassionate operators, all while his wife is seemingly unreachable. The screen play, written by Chris Sparling, is ingenious; it is consistently clever in the way it drops hints and suggestions about Paul’s life and relationships. Sparling even manages to make Paul, and the audience for that matter, more claustrophobic then they already are, involving a visitor to Paul's coffin. BURIED is a well-paced series of alternations between Paul’s frantic conversations with the unseen supporting characters and stretches where, totally alone, he runs a range of emotions in response to his confinement. Reyonld's steps outside his usual romantic comedy and hits this thrilling masterpiece out of the park. He's not a hero like in his upcoming film, Green Lantern, which happens to make his situation all the more unnerving--he's just a regular guy.

Rodrigo Cortes does an excellent job escalating the claustrophobia. What makes the movie work is that it traps you in that coffin right beside Paul, wondering how long the air will last, the survival of his cell phone battery life and ultimately, his own. BURIED doesn't grab it's audience's attention by the cliche jumps, jolts, and pop out scenes but rather it brutally and diabolically tightens its suspense screws as the movie progresses, not only keeping Paul mercilessly trapped, but also you.