Buried

For the claustrophobic, this is not.

The H-Bomb: Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), a civilian contractor working in Iraq, wakes up to a very distressing find: he has been buried alive in a wooden coffin. Left with a lighter and a cell phone, Paul only has 90 minutes to figure a way out of there before he runs out of oxygen. In a desperate scramble, he calls everyone from his wife, to rescue workers- who at first assume it’s a prank, to the very people who put him in his current predicament. As the air starts to run out, and the sand starts to leak in, we can only sit, watch, and ask ourselves, “Will he make it out in time?”

We all have our phobias. Some of us are deathly, even irrationally, afraid of bugs, snakes, heights, whatever. My phobia just so happens to be claustrophobia, so for me, being buried alive would be the most terrifying fate imaginable. I would much rather be crucified with my nuts set on fire and my feet tickled than be trapped in some small box, helpless to do anything but slowly suffocate to death.

Needless to say, I identified with the protagonist’s dilemma. I felt his pain. So much so that while I was engaged the entire time, I was so nerve wracked I couldn’t quite enjoy it… yet, I still recognize that it is a good film. The main thing “Buried” gets right, and what makes it as effective as it is, is that it stays inside the coffin for the entire film. We never see even a glimpse of the outside world, not in cutting to other characters, not in flashbacks, nothing. We are stuck in that fucking box with Ryan Reynolds from beginning to end, and while it could have rendered the film boring if done badly, instead it made things almost unbearably intense. It makes us feel what he feels; trapped, anxious, and running out of time.

Speaking of Mr. Reynolds, he has never impressed me before, I always thought he was kind of a doofus, but he sure impressed me here. Holy shiteballs, this is one of those performances that forces me to completely re-evaluate an actor’s ability. While other actors can be heard over the phone, Reynolds is the only one ever seen on camera, and he carries the movie admirably. He conveys the perfect mix of panic, desperation, and hope-against-hope. He is totally believable as an everyman stuck in a horrifying situation, and much of the credit for this film working so well lies with him.

Director Rodrigo Cortes keeps the pace tight and the tension high, as he keeps throwing more and more challenges his main character’s way. The scene where the snake slithered into the coffin literally made my skin crawl. Cortes is currently shooting a film called “Red Lights” with Robert De Niro, and after this, I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on that and any future projects of his down the road.

Now “Buried” is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, from what I can tell, opinions are pretty mixed. Some people, who can’t seem to find suspense in drama, will undoubtedly find it dull. Others, will find it too effective for its own good and won’t be able to handle it, while others may simply be pissed off by the ending. For me, while again, I didn’t exactly enjoy it in the typical sense, I thought it worked incredibly well, and I believe that braver-than-average moviegoers, looking for a genuinely suspenseful, atypical thriller, may just find it to their liking.