Buried (2010)

Though “127 Hours” had a much higher profile and an Oscar-caliber pedigree, it was not the only film released in 2010 that focused solely on one actor for the majority of its running time. BURIED, starring Ryan Reynolds, took that concept even further; Reynolds is the only actor to appear in the film. And his character is equally trapped, if not more so. The result is a film that probably falls more into the category of an experiment, and while it’s certainly too bleak to merit repeat viewings, it’s the kind of experiment that can satisfy true movie lovers.

Reynolds is Paul Conrad, a U.S. contractor working in Iraq. He is introduced to the audience in complete darkness through a series of grunts, scratches and coughs. We quickly discover, when he does, that Paul is trapped in a wood box—buried alive in a coffin. He is unaware of his specific location or the identity of his captors, and struggles to remain calm and maintain faith that he will be rescued.

A few of BURIED’s plot conventions seem a little too hard to believe at first. Chief among them is the existence of a fully-charged cell phone in the box with Paul that does not have perfect reception but still better reception than my phone has in the back aisles of a Target. He also has a Zippo lighter so he (and the audience) can see, and a writing utensil to jot down phone numbers on the roof of the box. I suspect that the whole cell phone thing will be too much for some viewers to accept as plausible, but this did not bother me. Many movies employ conventions that force their audiences to buy into sometimes unbelievable coincidences and situations, and I was able to suspend my disbelief here and simply accept the premise.

Director Rodrigo Cortes makes some gutsy and, I think, brilliant choices with BURIED. He does not show us a single shot outside the buried box. I definitely expected to see military personnel negotiating with the terrorists above ground and at least one scene of Paul’s despondent wife and child back home. But Cortes executes the film with more discipline than that, and it enhances BURIED’s excitement. In addition, the film’s only light sources are the glow from the cell phone screen and the light from the Zippo. Whenever one of those two sources isn’t active, the audience sees complete darkness, just as Paul does.

I read that there were seven different coffins used to film the claustrophobic interior shots of the box, and Cortes manages to squeeze enough variety out of the shots to keep the visuals interesting, which might sound crazy considering that for the film’s entire 95-minute running time, we’re simply looking at a panicked man in a box. There are a few moments, however, when perhaps Cortes did not trust himself or our attention spans enough, and in these moments, the camera takes a bird’s eye view of the coffin’s length from overhead. These shots throw the audience out of the believability of the visuals; I think they were a mistake. But this only happens a few times.

BURIED’s script is surprisingly engaging. All of Paul’s circumstances are revealed through his cell phone calls, including his home life and job situation. Calls made to the FBI and 911 are circumstantially cruel and, surprisingly, darkly comic. We’re reminded of just how hard it is to get good customer service on the phone, especially when we see Paul struggle to receive aid in the situation he’s in, which is far more life-and-death than anything we’ve ever experienced. Never has “I’m transferring your call…please hold” been more agonizing!

There are a half-dozen other characters in BURIED, all of them voices over the phone. The film’s villain is a terrorist voiced by Jose Luis Garcia Perez, and he is amply threatening. But the work of the film falls squarely on the shoulders (or in this case, back) of Reynolds, and BURIED proves to me that his talents are heretofore underappreciated. Like Brad Pitt before him, Reynolds is proving himself to be a legitimate acting force paralyzed by his status as eye-candy. It’s a shame, too, because he conveys the alternating panic, resolve, frustration and desperation of a man in Paul’s situation with a believability that never falters. I’m looking forward to the day when Reynolds gets his due, and I’ll look back on this film as one of the movies that got his serious acting career started.

As I said before, BURIED is a cinematic experiment, not a crowd-pleaser. But I think the world of movies has room for both. And watching a clever filmmaker attempt a unique and unconventional idea can be, for me at least, as engaging as watching a well-made but more conventional movie. For me, it’s a work firmly in the experimental exercises of Alfred Hitchcock, mining similar ground to films like “Lifeboat” and “Rope,” where Hitchcock played with the ability of keeping an audience engaged in a single-space location, a concept in direct opposition to the very definition of cinema and more in tandem with the stage.

I did not like how BURIED ended, but I also don’t know how else it could have ended while maintaining plausibility. I won’t spoil that ending, but I will say that it’s both realistic and highly unsatisfying. And strangely, that analysis seems fitting, as I really appreciated the film itself but couldn’t see myself watching it multiple times. At bare minimum, BURIED is worthy of study for any budding filmmaker. It shows that that a visceral script and one good actor might just be enough to pull off something engaging, even without a huge Hollywood budget.

3.5 out of 4