Buried

Living In A Box

The idea of being buried alive is a fear shared by millions of us. For me personally, it's up at the top of the list, along with being eaten alive, burned alive and having to watch the Jonas Brothers' entire 2 hour set..... alive. But even if it wasn't, I believe Buried to be one of the best films of the year.

Buried centres around Iraq-based American contractor Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) who finds himself trapped in a wooden coffin six feet under. All he has with him is a phone, a lighter and 90 minutes of air that is slowly depleting. His kidnappers demand $5 million or Paul is left to die in his coffin. What happens next is some of the most claustrophobic and edge-of-your-seat viewing I've experienced in a long time.

I may have a slight bias towards the film, as I am a massive fan of films of this nature: very few cast members and locations, and much more attention devoted to suspense and dialogue. A few examples could be the recent thrillers Right At Your Door, Hard Candy and Pontypool. The big explosions and car chases of the typical Hollywood blockbuster are replaced for heart-stopping plot twists, and you learn to know the characters inside and out, making their predicaments all the more worrying.

I have openly stated my hatred of Ryan Reynolds in the past, which came from different reasons; the main one being well summed up by a local newspaper, which described his past roles chiefly playing a 'cocky gobshite'. However, I believe Reynolds truly holds his own in this film, and you feel his emotion in every second of his trauma. He reacts like most of us would: ringing his family before the people who could actually help him; angrily shouting at unhelpful phone operators, or even laughing to himself when things can't get any worse. It's this human quality to Reynolds that I feel he's lacked in his previous work, and a reason why his performance in Buried can be considered his best to date.

For a film that spends all of it's time inside a coffin, you can't help feel the influence from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. I believe the director, Rodrigo Cortes, managed to balance the suspense with light-hearted moments perfectly, very similar to how Hitchcock made his thrillers, such as Rear Window. Whilst Reynolds spends most of his time spinning in his makeshift 'grave', Hitchcock can well and truly stay still.

Rating - 9/10