Review: 'Buried'

The lighter's flame delivers us into consciousness with Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), trapped in a dark coffin "somewhere in Iraq." And the unsettling feeling of claustrophobia begins to set in.

Conroy struggles desperately to unbind his hands, while his legs flail at the end of this makeshift prison. A digital ring sounds, and the box is illuminated with an alien green light. It's that oft-perceived lifeline of the 21st century, a mobile phone.

On the other end of the line are the thickly accented men responsible for putting Conroy - a truck-driving American contractor whose last memory was that of his convoy being attacked - in his horrific predicament. They also left him the phone. They need their hostage alive.

Between conversations with his captors, who will require him to make a ransom video to transmit to the world, Conroy uses his fading mobile phone to attempt to reach out to his family, his employers and the American government.

Each attempt is met with maddening voice-mail messages, interminable hold music, inept and impersonal corporate drones and the infuriating indifference of bureaucracy. The manic heightening of the scenes would make for a fantastic "Saturday Night Live" sketch if the stakes weren't so high.

As Conroy pleads with the voices - both American and foreign - at the other end of his phone, his bargaining reveals a political thread to the movie that feels a bit overwrought.

The middle-class man from Michigan makes it clear that he is simply a casualty of war, left to beg for his life as a result of doing his job. And the almost comically accented kidnappers make a case for their own actions, claiming to be victims of circumstance. The bad guys it seems, are the war puppeteers and profiteers whom we never meet.

Fortunately, the political digressions do not distract completely from the sense of dread and despair developed by Reynolds' performance and the amazing cinematography and direction.

Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés used seven different coffins to capture every conceivable angle of his star's unenviable position, allowing edits and changes of perspective to keep viewers' interest from waning. All the scenes are lit only by the aforementioned Zippo and cell phone, offering a hyper-realism to the film.

Cortés brought Reynolds on board by getting the rom-com staple to trust in his vision. Reynolds' belief in the second-time director, along with Chris Sparling's script, allowed Reynolds the chance to highlight parts of his range mostly unexplored up to this point in his career. Certainly the smug charm and comedic timing are still on display here - providing a levity that makes the terror more bearable - but Reynolds also proves to be adept at a complexity and emotional depth that may change his just-a-pretty-face image.

Obviously, some degree of suspension of disbelief is required for the audience to fully buy in to this thriller that, like Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," plays with the narrative construct of a film shot in a single location. Can a man survive in a space that tight with no oxygen flow? How long does it take for a lighter to run out of fuel? And, most importantly, can a cell phone really get reception several feet underground? (And if so, whom do we call to set up service?) Such questions only get in the way of the enjoyment of the film and actually have little space to percolate in the minds of the audience, what with all the gasping for air.

'Buried'

Our grade: B

Genres: Drama, Thriller

Running Time: 94 min

MPAA rating: R

Release Date: Oct 8, 2010