Buried

Suspense

Icon Film Distribution

R4 DVD

Director Rodrigo Cortes has given us a surprisingly suspense-filled film. I say “surprising” because so little actually happens. He relies on the increasing desperation of his lead character and the situation he is in to build the tension.

Paul Conroy is a truck driver for a U.S. firm in Iraq. His convoy has been ambushed and he has been knocked unconscious. When he wakes up he is sealed in a wooden coffin-sized box and buried … somewhere. He still has a mobile phone and a cigarette lighter, so he can ring for help. He eventually gets onto a State Department agent who can organize an anti-terrorist squad in Iraq to rescue him. If they can find him. Meanwhile he has one of the insurgents on the phone. They want him to make a video on the phone denouncing the U.S. invasion. When Paul refuses his wife is shot.

It is a race between the anti-terrorist squad, who have captured one of the insurgents, and Paul’s limited air supply. The battery on his mobile won’t last forever and neither will his cigarette lighter. The insurgent has agreed to show the squad where they buried a box with a man in it in return for his own life. Will they make it?

Ryan Reynolds plays Conroy powerfully, depicting his mood swings between optimism and desperation. With each downturn he shows an increase in the tension. He does this with minimal props to depend on, only sheer acting skill.

All the “action” except for a few mobile phone shots of Conroy’s wife being shot takes place inside the box. It is a daring concept that should give a high boredom factor, but in this superbly made film it doesn’t. The film must be the ultimate in low budget films, but it works, and works really well.

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