Buried – Being buried alive is as tense as you ever thought it would be

While a film about a man trapped in a box with a limited amount of air sounds like a great idea, when you try to stretch that out over the course of 95 minutes, you’re in danger of turning a claustrophobic nightmare into boring tedium. While Buried often seems in danger of dissolving into a mess, it thankfully overcomes this thanks to great direction from Rodrigo Cortes and a very effective performance by Ryan Reynolds.

Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a contractor in Iraq who has been kidnapped. The movie begins in darkness, with Paul waking up in a small pine box that buried just underneath the soil (deep enough he can’t get out, but not so deep he can’t sometimes hear things above him). Also in the box with him is a cell phone and a few other things, which in his panicked state he uses to phone anyone who he thinks can help him, desperately trying to find a way out of his dire situation.

Then the kidnappers call. They want him to make a videophone plea, asking for a $5 million ransom. Paul’s American contacts don’t want him to do it, but what choice does he have?

It would have been easy for the filmmakers to pull away from Reynolds in his claustrophobic coffin and show what’s going on up on the surface, if only just to give the film more visual action, but to its credit the movie sticks with its premise (there are times when it feels almost like a radio play). Director Cortes does a bang-up job keeping things moving though, so that even though there’s a slight feel of Buried being a bit of a filmmaking exercise, it never stagnates or feels repetitive. Cortes is helped in this by Reynolds, who may be a bit shrill sometimes but know how to convey terror, even if  truck driver Paul sometimes doesn’t seem the sharpest tool in the box and really could do with thinking a bit more. Reynolds keeps up a huge amount of energy through the film, allowing you to stay with him over the 95 claustrophobic minutes.

The only real issue is the script, or rather the situations the script creates. It’s easy to see that when writing it and getting it financed, they felt the need to invent all manner of tricks to keep up the tension and ensure things keep moving forwards, but the problem is that on screen these have a tendency to come across as contrived and tricksy.

Some have commented that Chris Sparling’s screenplay is a commentary on modern communications problems – mostly the fact that while we have a panoply of communications options now, they remove us from other people as much as they bring us together – but to me these came across as more being slightly contrived ways to up the tension and keep things fresh. As Paul deals with voicemail, detached voices, being put on hold, phone signal problems and suchlike, there is a feeling of the film trying to push things too far, so that while still tense, it begins to feel more like a story than that you’re there in the ground with Paul. It’s a good story, but it’s a story nonetheless.

Also less than successful are the movies stabs at political relevance, with the script making idle comments about the way the Americans treat US civilians in Iraq. Again you can understand why, because on paper they must have felt the need to make it more than just being about a man in a box, but these things feel perfunctory and unnecessary.

Other than these contrivances, it all works extremely well – indeed better than it perhaps should, as it’s an often uncomfortable watch, with the panic dial turned up to 11 and the claustrophobia ever increasing. If you’ve seen the end of the unsettling and shocking original version of The Vanishing, just imagine watching that for 95 minutes and you have an idea of Buried. It’s a truly intense experience, which you don’t often get to say about a movie. It’s occasional stabs at politics may be a misstep, and it may get slightly contrived at times (one moment involving a reptile really did push things to the point where I was almost ready to give up), but the sheer level of tension throughout Buried ensure this is one box that’s well worth opening up.

Overall Verdict: Despite a couple of rough edges, Buried runs with its premise and makes being trapped in a coffin as scary as you ever thought it would be.

Reviewer: Phil Caine