Buried has a simple premise: a man wakes up to find that he's been buried alive, trapped in a coffin. From that premise alone, you get the tone of the film and can probably make a fairly educated guess as to whether or not you're going to like it. It's not going to be quick and it sure as hell isn't going to be an easy ride, but if you have the patience and the nerves, the journey is absolutely worth it.
The story opens on a black screen and lingers long enough to have you wondering if something is wrong with the DVD, but eventually a man's heavy breathing pierces the darkness. There is no prologue, no opening exposition, just a sweaty, bloody man trapped in a coffin. Finally a flame bursts to life from a Zippo lighter and we see the face of Ryan Reynolds's Paul Conroy, a US truck driver working in Iraq. We don't know why he is where he is, and at this point, neither does he.
This is where we're stuck for the rest of the film. We're just as trapped as the lead character. Well, almost. Director Rodrigo Cortés does some nifty things with the camera, such as pulling the camera out into the unknown, until Paul is a just a tiny rectangle in a screen of black. Other than these moments, which are few and far in-between, the camera work is just as claustrophobic as the film itself, which adds to the uneasiness of it all.
To say that Ryan Reynolds carries the show is a bit of an understatement: he's practically the only living thing we see for the entire ninety-plus minutes. If anyone had any doubts as to Ryan Reynold's talent, those doubts can be erased. Watching Paul rapidly move between panic and a fabricated, forced calm will make you squirm in your seat. The only issue I take with his performance - though this could easily be the fault of the director - is that Reynolds exhibits a bit of his trademark humor. It's always fun to watch, and it's a breath of fresh air given Buried's tense atmosphere, but it's hard to accept that a man who's in such a terrifying situation could even muster the energy to be anything but stone cold serious.
Paul has a variety of tools at his disposal, the most important of which is a phone, which gets shoddy reception at best and is slowly but surely losing its battery power. This is where the bulk of the plot comes from, between his conversations with his employer, his possible rescuer, and the party responsible for his current situation. The different phone calls elicit all sorts of reactions, from relief to outright fear, and each call ratchets the tension up more and more.
There will be those out there that criticize Paul's actions, condemning him for not making what they think are the right decisions. You know the type. "Why didn't he do this? I would've done that." The simple fact is that nobody knows what they would do if they awoke trapped in a coffin, and that's the question that this film attempts to answer. Smart direction, overwhelming suspense, and a terrific performance from Ryan Reynolds make Buried a truly special film.
Our guest writer, Dylan Duarte, is a horror buff and writer who writes about Halloween costumes. He can be reached at dylnduarte@gmail.com.
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