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"BURIED"
(2010) (Ryan Reynolds, voice of Robert Paterson) (R)

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QUICK TAKE:
Suspense: An American contractor wakes up to find himself buried underground in the Iraqi desert in a wood coffin, with only a few tools at his disposal, including a cell phone with spotty reception and a dying battery, to help him find a way out.
PLOT:
Paul Conroy (RYAN REYNOLDS) is an American contractor working as a civilian truck driver in Iraq. After his convoy is attacked, he wakes up to find himself buried several feet down in a wood coffin. Finding a foreign cell phone, he tries to call his emergency contact, but can't locate the number.

Instead, he tries his wife, Linda (voice of SAMANTHA MATHIS), who he initially can't reach, and then gets Dan Brenner (voice of ROBERT PATERSON) from the U.S. State Department who informs Paul they're working on his case, as is Paul's boss, Alan Davenport (voice of STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY).

But the most alarming call is from Jabir (voice of JOSE LUIS GARCIA PEREZ), a terrorist who's responsible for Paul's predicament and informs him that he only has a short amount of time to arrange a $5 million ransom. From that point on, and with time, air and his cell phone battery running out, Paul tries to figure out what to do in hopes of getting himself out.

OUR TAKE: 7 out of 10
Most people love their cell phones, smart phones and other such devices that they use to communicate with others and stay connected to the world. Other than monthly charges, however, the things many complain about are short battery life, dropped calls and spotty reception. Of course, for the vast majority those are just irritants and inconveniences. The time you don't want to suffer from any of that is when you really need the phone to make a call. Such as when your car breaks down, someone's injured in some remote location or, say, when you're six feet under.

And by under I mean beneath the surface of the ground. That's the crisis that Paul Conroy wakes up to in "Buried," an effective littler thriller that might have a few plot issues here and there, but otherwise should have those prone to claustrophobia squirming in their seats and aspiring filmmakers watching to see how to make an entire movie in a small space.

Granted, this isn't the first film to exist in a confined locale as others have taken place in single rooms and director Joel Schumacher kept Colin Farrell in an old-fashioned place for making calls for most of the appropriately titled "Phone Booth." Yet, he had the luxury of moving the camera around that now nearly extinct space as well as showing his protagonist's point of view looking all around from inside that.

Here, and beyond a few artsy shots (that go beyond the actual dimensions of the container), a brief cell phone video clip, and a scant imagined bit of the beginning of a rescue, the entire story takes place in a wood coffin buried beneath several feet of terra firma. That's right, once Paul wakes up, he's stuck there as is the audience with him, for 90-some minutes. I have to hand it to director Rodrigo Cortés and screenwriter Chris Sparling for sticking with the concept and not doing some sort of temporal flashback ("1 Day Earlier" or "12 Hours Ago") that would allow us to see how the character ended up in such an inconvenient place.

Of course, the problem with doing so is that without some sort of connection to the outside world, such a setup could become a tedious exercise akin to some experimental and existential project a student would make in film school. And that's where the cell phone comes in, which introduces us to the rest of the plot as the unlucky protagonist calls for help (and thus gives us some exposition) and then eventually realizes the source of his predicament.

The revelation of that might seem a bit far-fetched in terms of the steps the villain has taken (and how the same goal could have been met without as much effort), but then we wouldn't have this particular movie, now would we? There are also issues with the aforementioned cell phone reception (although I'm no technical expert on how far down such signals would work), a creepy visit by a certain reptile and, the biggest of them all, how Paul has enough oxygen to last the length of the movie.

As I've said in movie after movie, a few simple script tweaks could have taken care of those and other slightly nagging credibility issues that may or may not take viewers out of the experience by having their heads fill with "but how" questions. While I experienced them, they didn't pull me away from the story as much as I thought, although viewer reaction will probably vary.

Kudos should certainly go out to Ryan Reynolds as the only performer who's physically present from start to finish (the rest of the cast literally phone in their parts). It's tough to pull off a one-man show (such as Tom Hanks did for much of "Cast Away") and even harder to do so in a wood box underground where one must become a contortionist simply to turn around. But the performer thankfully continues to distance himself from his "Van Wilder" days and does an admirable job considering the physical and script confines with which he works. He won't be following Hanks in terms of any golden statuettes, but it's a solid performance.

And that also holds true for the film in general. Other than a few issues here and there, I found it to be a tightly woven and effective thriller. Considering the overall and ultimate parameters of the story, however, I can't imagine "Buried" will see the light of day in theaters for long, but do expect it to resurface and live on cable for a long time. Just make sure your cell phone is charged before you see it -- just in case. The film rates as a 7 out of 10.




Reviewed August 31, 2010 / Posted October 1, 2010


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