Review: Buried (2010)

“I need one million dollars by nine o’clock tonight or I’ll be left to die in this coffin!”
– Paul Conroy

SYNOPSIS: Paul is a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it’s a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap. – via IMDB

Rob told me to check this one out because I do enjoy Ryan Reynolds. I had never heard of it, though apparently it had been recommended to my other half. Watching this was quite the ordeal. Buried takes awhile to start up, silence, and darkness to set the atmosphere up, and it worked. The whole concept of being buried alive is a damn horrendous one, one that will freak just about anyone out. There were parts that feel like they were inserted deliberately to add some action (here’s looking at you, snake part), and bits that had such flawed logic I struggled to accept it a bit. However, it really is a harrowing tale of Paul Conroy, and his desperation to be let free, as well as the American policy of not negotiating with terrorists, while Paul is talking with his kidnapper on his phone, and anxiously trying to contact his wife. I thought it was a little ridiculous that he couldn’t get hold of anyone, and that they were having such a hard time tracking him, and then suddenly there was a snake (convenient)… but aside from that, Reynolds was very good. You believed that he was upset and afraid, and there were times his frustration and anger resonated so much with you because we have all gotten so peeved we get sarcastic and nasty just because. He had better reason than I ever have, though. The conversation he had with Alan Davenport at CRT about the benefits for his family just brought me to my knees. Some people are just too cold and blunt and cruel – and the sad thing is that there are so many people like that out there. There were plenty of shots that I thought were done very well in the film, and the movie managed to stay within a run time where it was not stretched out and going into the boring sector. Buried manages to be engrossing and entertaining, which is great considering the entire film takes place only in a coffin, and Reynolds is the only person we see, the others are all just voices. I can’t see myself watching this again in a rush, or maybe even ever again. It is a decent movie, but not something one will be able to go back to time and time again.