A gripping one-man show

Buried (2010)
Certified:14
Duration: 94 minutes
Directed by: Rodrigo Cortes
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Ivana Mino, Anne Lockhart, Robert Paterson, Stephen Tobolowsky, Samantha Mathis, Erik Palladino, Heath Centazzo, Joe Guarneri, Warner Loughlin, José Luis Garcia
KRS release

Ryan Reynolds, last year seen in the Sandra Bullock hit The Proposal and as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, delivers a one-man show in Buried.

He plays Paul Conroy, an American contractor who is in Iraq working as a civilian truck driver. When a convoy he is part of, is attacked, he loses consciousness. He ends up waking in a wooden coffin buried under the ground. Next to him lies a mobile phone which is not his.

He tries to call emergency but ends up trying to contact his own wife, Linda (voiced by Samantha Mathis) and then Dan Brenner (voiced by Robert Paterson) who is from the US State Department. He calls his boss Alan (voiced by Stephen Tobolowsky) and also receives a call.

The man who has put him in the coffin is Jabir (voice of José Luis Garcia Perez); he has buried the cell phone too so that he can arrange a $5 million ransom. As time passes by, Paul starts running out of oxygen and the mobile phone’s battery becomes low.

Mr Reynolds shows he can carry a film by himself and never overplays his hand. And we are pitched into his terrible, claustophobic situation with him. The story progresses smoothly as the calls he make show us the kind of person he is and give us snippets of information about his past which help us piece together his life like a jigsaw puzzle.

This is the kind of film that one needs experience at least once, however make sure no one who has already seen the film reveals the conclusion or any other details. What you need to know is that it’s all about Ryan Reynolds in a coffin… that is more than enough information.

It’s a delight to see Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes following in Alfred Hitchcock’s steps and not cop out to Hollywood-style stratagems or clichés. He is still no Hitchcock and the film has its rough edges but he has the suspense master’s penchant for churning out one trick after another.