(That's gotta suck.)
CAST: Ryan Reynolds - and the voices of Robert Paterson, Stephen Tobolowsky, Samantha Mathis, Erik Palladino, and Ivana Mino.
DIRECTOR: Rodrigo Cortes
WARNING: Minimal SPOILERS and pseudo-claustrophobic settings straight ahead...
Well, folks, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
First, we got a movie set almost completely on a bus with SPEED (1994). Then, we got a movie almost completely set in a phone booth with, uh, PHONE BOOTH (2002). Then, upping the ante somewhat, the - ahem - Mind of M. Night Shymalan dreamed up DEVIL (2010) - a horror flick almost completely set in an elevator with the titular malefic entity masquerading as one of the trapped occupants.
The common theme of these films is the "almost completely set in" phrase. While they all do a good job of confining the action to mostly one setting, at some point cut-aways to characters in other locations were necessary and unavoidable. However, with the arrival of the Ryan Reynolds suspense/thriller BURIED, we finally get a film that is completely and continuously set - from first shot to last - in one, tiny, claustrophobic location: a coffin - with Mr. Reynolds's character trapped in it. All together now: WOW.
Ryan plays Paul Conroy, a contractor working in Iraq doing transport work. Except we don't really get to see him in action, because BURIED'S very first scene shows Paul waking in the pitch-dark, bound and gagged and bruised, in what appears to be a coffin. He manages to get loose and scrabbles around the confined space to find... a cell phone.
Just as we're about to deduce that this must be some sort of VAN WILDER-type of prank gone very, very wrong (this is a Ryan Reynolds movie, after all), and Paul is about to ring up his drinking buddies to give them the cussing-out of their lifetimes, we are proven dead wrong. Very dead wrong. So very.
See, it appears that Paul's convoy was ambushed and he was knocked out in the process. Next thing he knows, he's waking up in a box that's just a tad smaller than my flat. Using the phone, he manages to call: (1) the FBI in the States, and gets the royal runaround you would expect; (2) his wife's answering machine back in Michigan; (3) the head offices of CRT, the company he works for; and (4) finally, the Department of State, where the runaround he gets is just a little bit less royal than the one he got from the FBI: they actually manage to put him through to a criminal investigator in Iraq specializing in kidnappings.
Then the phone rings. And when Paul answers, he discovers it's his kidnappers - wanting him to do... certain things.
What happens next, I will leave up to your virgin eyes and ears. I don't want to give away too much. Suffice it to say, the burning questions here are fairly simple.
Will Paul get out alive? Can he trust the investigators claiming to be looking for him through the cell phone signal? What happens when the battery runs out? Will they find him before he runs out of air? Or will the kidnappers get back to him, first? Or is there another threat he hasn't even thought of? Like, you know, farting in a very confined space and accidentally igniting a methane explosion with that lighter?
You'll see. Meanwhile, I'm going to tell a good friend of mine who is thinking about accepting a contractor job in Iraq to watch this movie first. Let's check his enthusiasm level after he does.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Not going to go too much into BURIED or my serious opinion of it because this is one of those "gimmick" movies that works more, the less you know about it in advance. Going on, I only knew its bare-bones premise, and that Ryan Reynolds was in it. Beyond that, I let the film surprise me. And it did - enough to get a ***1/2 (good).
I have to resist the urge to deconstruct the film and discuss it too much, because that would be another way to unleash more SPOILERS than I'd like. What I will say is that the primary reason the film works as well as it does, is because of Mr. Reynolds's performance. You buy - a hundred percent - his sense of confusion and horror at his desperate situation. BURIED is one of those films that could've fallen apart with the wrong actor in it. It was crucial that director Rodrigo Cortes get the casting right, since this is a one-man show.
And he did... With Ryan Reynolds as that man, BURIED rises from being a potential "one-trick pony" to become a suspenseful, engaging, and unforgettably harrowing experience. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that you will find yourself thinking about long after the end credits have rolled.
And credit for that effectiveness goes almost entirely to Ryan Reynolds. See for yourself...
