Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Ryan Reynolds, Jose Luis Garcia Perez, Robert Paterson, Stephen Tobolowsky,
Samantha Mathis, Ivana Mino, Warner Loughlin, Erik Palladino, Kali Rocha | Written by Chris Sparling
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £19.99 | BD Region B | Runtime 84 minutes | Directed by Rodrigo Cortes
It's like director Cortes said himself, why would anyone be interested in watching a film where it's just one man alone in a box for 90 minutes? My thoughts exactly. But in what sounds like the most uneventful and boring premise for a feature film in quite some time, Buried is in fact a compelling, masterfully-written suspense thriller with lashings of greatness and a dash of Hitchcock.
While working as a US contractor in Iraq, Paul Conroy (Reynolds) is attacked and kidnapped by insurgents. Coming to hours later, he finds himself, as the title suggests, buried beneath the desert in a wooden coffin with only a lighter and a mobile phone to keep him company. A phone with limited battery life at that, but what's it to a man with less than two hours of oxygen? A lot. And if you think your reception is bad, you don't want to know what it's like inside a casket. In the desert. In Iraq.
Reynolds' is undoubtedly the best we've ever seen him. The other names in the cast list above are irrelevant as they are characters only heard but not seen. With a career-defining performance, he's going to be extremely hard pressed to top this in future roles. The same goes for the script. As soon as the credits rolled I immediately found myself yearning to read the screenplay. Only a literary masterpiece of suspense could sustain such a film for an hour and a half without faltering once. There is never a dull moment. Reynolds is electric in a bleak and claustrophobic rollercoaster of gripping emotion. You can hardly believe that it's going to unfold as brilliantly as it does, always waiting for that dumb twist that takes you right out of the movie, but thankfully it never comes.
As Conroy lies trapped beneath the sand, the integrity and power of Reynolds as an actor rises to the sky. I'll be immensely shocked by anyone who buries Buried. Magnificent cinema.
EXTRAS ★★ The making-of featurette Unearthing Buried (17:26); an interivew with director Cortes (14:35); and the theatrical trailer.