You can only wonder how hard it was to pitch the idea for ‘Buried’ to film executive producers – “Hey guys, I have an idea for a film, it’s just one guy in a coffin making phone calls… and you don’t see anyone else ever… oh no it’s not a short film… it’s a feature.” I can imagine it took a lot of convincing and I’m so glad that the team went to the effort to do it because ‘Buried’ has ended up being one of the best thrillers to be released in a long time.
That one man in a coffin is Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds – ‘Paper Man’, ‘The Proposal’), an army contractor in Iraq who awakes buried in the ground in a coffin. Paul soon finds out that he is being held captive by Jabir (Jose Luis Garcia Perez – ‘’El Criminal’, ‘Desechos’), a terrorist who won’t release him until a ransom is paid. Using his mobile phone Paul rings various people including his wife, his boss and the FBI until eventually a Hostage Negotiator starts working on his case.
There are three things that make this movie work so well… firstly a brilliant script by screenwriter, Chris Sparling (‘Balance’, ‘An Uzi At The Alamo’) who does one of the hardest things are screenwriter can do, and that is write some perfect phone conversation dialogue, keeping in mind that the only conversations that Paul can have as a character is on the phone. These conversations move the story along nicely and even manage to help out with the characterization of the characters… you seriously learn more about Paul and some of the people he speaks to on the phone then you do about characters in most Hollywood films these days… not a bad effort considering all that comes from phone conversations.
The second thing that makes it work so well is the expert film-making skills of director Rodrigo Cortes (‘Impavido’, ‘Dirt Devil’) who takes the script and makes it work sensationally well on screen. Cortes uses the limited space he has to create a real sense of claustrophobia as well as creating some inventive shots that put other filmmakers to shame. The third thing that worked so well was something that took me completely by surprise. I have been extremely critically of Ryan Reynold’s work in the past (I mean come on the guy has made some absolute stinkers), and I was pleasantly surprised to see him put in a terrific performance… a performance so good that he deserves to receive an Oscar nomination. This certainly wouldn’t have been an easy role for an actor to pull off and Reynolds does it brilliantly… he was a real joy to watch.
‘Buried’isn’t everybody’s cup-of-tea but if you are in the mood for a creative film out of the ordinary then it is well worth a look.
Year: 2010
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Jose Luis Garcia Perez
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 95 mins
Rating: 