Film Review - Buried (2010)

Buried (2010)

Ever wondered how it might feel to be buried alive? Well, after watching this film, you may very well get a good idea of such an extraordinary experience.

Buried was a highly-anticipated Spanish thriller, directed by Hugo Cortes. I've never heard of the guy before, but he suddenly did a good job of impressing me on my first date with him as far as this film goes. The film is an hour and a half, and takes place entirely within the confines of a wooden coffin buried a few feet underground.

Now, if you're the kind of person who doesn't like the idea of spending ninety minutes watching a film which moves nowhere else, then you probably won't like this movie. Let's face it- there's only so many ways you can film the inside of a wooden box with four walls, and even I had the initial pang of "I'm not sure I can sit through this if this is all it's going to be!". My girlfriend has told me more than once that this film sucks for this very reason. But if you watch it with an open mind whereby you can expect anything to happen, and you why a man is buried underground and who did it to him and how he is going to escape, then you may find you enjoy it. This film won't, however, be everyone's cup of tea.

The coffin is inhabited by an ordinary Joe named Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds. Now, I'm not sure what people think of Ryan Reynolds, but I'm sure that, given his outings in films like Blade: Trinity and The Proposal, he is considered to be a bit of a goofy, one-line machine who looks good with a beard. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I was somewhat unconvinced that Reynolds would be able to pull off the kind of acting required for a picture intended to be so tense, gripping and deadly serious. However, as News of the World rates him on the back of the DVD case, Reynolds really does "own the screen" in this movie.

And, when he is the titular and only on-screen actor in a film that focuses entirely on him, he needed to, and he raises to the challenge superbly. Reynolds takes you through Paul Conroy's rollercoaster ride of emotions (a cliché I am sure has been banded about all too often when talking about this film), from the entirely-warranted surge of uncontrollable panic and frustration from the moment he regains consciousness inside the wooden casket, to the sadness and sorrow strewn across his face and accented with a tear at times when the thought of being condemned to his death and never seeing his loved ones again becomes too unbearable, which comes across as very genuine and believable. Cortes says in the DVD extras that Reynolds doesn't act, he just is, or words to those effect.

One of my favourite aspects of this film is that I went into it knowing nothing about it. I knew nothing of the plot besides that some guy gets buried alive, I didn't know how much time was going to be spent in the casket, whether Reynolds was the only actor in it, etcetera, etcetera. Y'know what? I think that's the best way to watch it, so I don't want to spoil anything in this review. The plot starts out vary shady at the beginning, and is pieced together slowly throughout, involving you in the story. It also elicits from you the desire to know more and see how it all pans out for our hero.

I shall keep this review brief, as I feel that the film justifies itself better in motion than I can in words. I shall simply conclude by saying that this film has had a lot of positive criticism and plenty of good said about it, and I definitely think it is worth watching. There's nothing quite like it been done before, so it wins appeal for novelty value to start- but the novelty should not overshadow the genuinely good job that Cortes does at shooting it given the constraints, and the stellar performance by that "goofy" Ryan Reynolds.

I have high praise for this film- it gets four and a half brains.