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Buried (2010) - TerrorScribe - 10-13-2010
[SIZE="5"]Buried (2010)[/SIZE]
Directed by: Rodrigo Cortes
Written by: Chris Sparling
Starring: Ryan Reynolds
Running time: 94 minutes
Rating: R
I donât do well with enclosed places.
I canât even pinpoint some childhood trauma that might have caused it. I just know itâs there. I donât even do well with onscreen portrayals of claustrophobic situations. Itâs like thereâs this gigantic jackbooted foot stepping on my chest, crushing the breath from my lungs. Itâs a feeling that leaves me wanting to run screaming, arms flailing, into the light. Mostly, I can control it. At the worst, I can just turn off what Iâm watching or turn my eyes away. It doesnât keep me from enjoying things, but it certainly means it might take a little longer to get through it. Maybe thatâs why itâs taken me over a year and a half to get through âThe Descentâ, but thatâs a movie discussion for another time. Currently, the movie discussion at hand is âBuried.â
The first feature length film from director Rodrigo Cortes, âBuriedâ tells the story of Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), a contractor in the Iraq war zone. After his convoy is attacked and most everyone is killed, Conroy now finds himself buried alive: a plain pine box somewhere beneath the countless miles of desert.
It takes almost no time at all for the movie to establish its enclosed environment. Cortes does an incredible job of not just showing me where Conroy is trapped but making me feel where he is. Itâs no small feat given that, by the very nature of the story, heâs limited in his choice of camera angles. Speaking of limited, the premise of being buried alive is usually married to a serial killer of some sort or, at a more personal level, associated with a descent into madness. In this case, screenwriter Chris Sparling (âAn Uzi At The Alamoâ) takes this element and places it in a fresh and topical environment. He does a very good job, but not perfect â more on that later.
Ryan Reynolds is the singular star of this film. There are no flashbacks to set things up or cutting away to search parties â nothing â just Reynolds in a box with a lighter and a cell phone. A staggering amount of faith in his acting is displayed here and rightfully so. He knocks it right out of the park. There wasnât a single moment of watching him where I didnât feel his fear or anger radiating off him. He makes the movie worth watching all by his lonesome. However, he can only take the movie so far.
As someone put it to me, âItâs 107 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a box.âItâs 94 really, but the point is essentially the same. Quite simply, there is only so much you can do with a limited number of elements. You have Reynolds, a coffin and a cell phone. Since the entirety of the movie takes place here, thereâs only so much you can do with it. I think that maybe as a one-hour network television show â about 44 minutes â it might have been perfect. At over an hour and a half, the story starts to get little tedious. Itâs almost as if Sparling ran out of meaningful things to write about and just started throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Some of it, sadly, was just downright irritating. Maybe it was nine years worth of training from the Marines coming back to visit but some of the things he does are just counter-intuitive to his survival. If I were in the situation, as scared and panicked as I would be, I will still do whatever I could to maximize my chance at survival. Conroy does not and, great of a job that Reynolds does with him, that took me right out the movie.
âBuriedâ is a wonderful showpiece for Ryan Reynolds, but as a whole, isnât as great as his performance.
Buried (2010) - FreddysFingers - 10-13-2010
Gonna have to disagree with you slightly on this one Terror. See, I thought they did a wonderful job utilizing as many different angles as they possibly can given the space. Even though some of the shots were repeated it didn't harm the movie because the plot and the performance was so engaging.
Buried (2010) - TerrorScribe - 10-14-2010
I think I had more problems with the script than with the cinematography. Some of the shots were really nice, but some of the things that happened just took me out of the movie.
Buried (2010) - FreddysFingers - 10-15-2010
Curious now. What is a specific example of what you mean?
Buried (2010) - TerrorScribe - 10-15-2010
Things like his captors take everything from him EXCEPT his anti-anxiety meds.
He lights a fire inside a wooden box. Aside from it being a bad deal under "ordinary" conditions, when you're buried and oxygen is at a premium, it's an even more stupefying act.
If I'm calling someone, the first thing I'm going to say is, "I'm buried in a box in the middle of the desert. Get me some help." I'm not going to dick around and argue with the person on the other end of the line, like he did with his wife's friend or whoever that was. He argued with her until she hung up on him and didn't tell her his situation.
Again, maybe this is my military training talking, but if someone tells me what I need to do to survive, I'm going to do it. If they tell me not to call people, I'm not going to waste time calling my senile mom in a nursing home. I understand he's distraught and all, but everything he did said to me that he wasn't interested in his survival. Maybe that was intentional, but it did nothing for me.
Buried (2010) - FreddysFingers - 10-15-2010
That might be why. This is an average guy and not someone who has gone through military training. However, calling his mom was sort of his way of showing that there is no way he was ever going to get out of that box and that he didn't care anymore. The fire, yes, I was surprised that didn't eat up his oxygen and why the box didn't catch on fire. As for the pills, I'm sure that if the terrorists took them from him he would have died quicker and they wanted him to live so that they could get their money and to torture him. Killing him off quickly wouldn't get their needs.
Buried (2010) - Chainsaw Brutality - 08-08-2011
Solid review TS, and I agree with you.
I remember 'Buried' having alot of hype coming out of Cannes, which really had me stoked for it.
It was disappointing. Ryan Reynolds gave a good performance, but the script was annoying. The bit where he argues with the woman on the phone was absurd, no one in their right mind does that when they're fighting for survival. I also agree with TS on the part where he lights a fire inside the box - there is no way possible for it not to drain his oxygen supply, because oxygen keeps a fire going.
The writing should have been better, it just got to a point where I wanted this movie to end, I was so annoyed.
Buried (2010) - CarolinePar - 08-08-2011
is it wrong that when I first heard of this flick - I thought of the USA movie Buried Alive...?
Buried (2010) - LolliePop - 08-09-2011
I was pleasantly surprised by this film. Its not perfect but it really does draw you in and it totally took me aback. I didn't think RR could pull in a performance like that. Still not sold me enough to watch The Green Lantern yet though lol.
Buried (2010) - CarolinePar - 08-09-2011
Since finding out that a lot of exterior shots of Green Lantern were filmed in my hometown of NOLA I actually want to see it more
...I'm homesick :reddisgust: