Written by: PBF
Ryan Reynolds certainly has come a long way since the Nickelodeon teen drama Fifteen.
Buried takes place entirely in a large wooden coffin buried a few feet underground in Iraq. Paul Conroy (Reynolds) is a truck driver whose convoy was attacked while working there. Children were throwing rocks at his truck, an IED blew up one of the other trucks, and the next thing he recalls is waking up in this box. Also in the box is a Zippo, a BlackBerry (not his), a glowstick, a candle, a flashlight, a note written in another language, a knife, a pen and Paul’s anxiety medication. Damn Paul’s luck suffering from anxiety having been buried in a coffin alive.
This film could have gone horribly awry, what with the numerous possible plot holes, one of which being him buried with so many items that would be useful to him. Well, I assure you, he is in this box for a reason and each item serves a specific function essential to that reason. One of the other more obvious concerns would be having to spend an entire film in the coffin, but the 95 minute runtime ensures that we do not get irritated at the lack of scenery. As does Ryan Reynolds. He gives us a great performance, making sure we feel every bit of desperation, panic, et al. that he does. And his actions are plausible. He reacts and does things the very same way that you or I would. And I say you or I, meaning, as opposed to a trained combat soldier, which he is not.
Another point of concern is that since we wake up in the coffin with Paul, we learn little to nothing about his character, which in any other film, would detach us from his plight and leave us to not really care about him. But he is trapped in a box. He is not a jerk (that we know of). He is married with a child. He is innocent. This is enough for us to want him to live. He is like us. Or at least enough like us.
The only problem with a film like this is that it has no replay value. It goes through all the emotional journey. Desperation, anger, tedium, hysteria. And it does this successfully. Therefore, once experienced in its entirety, there is no motivation to see it again. And not so much because you know how it will end, but rather simply because a journey is exciting because of the unknown events that will occur. “How will this get resolved?” “Who will he call?” Once you know the answers, the novelty is gone.
The film does a great job of being completely realistic, entertaining, and removing any doubt that being buried alive is quite a horrific experience (is there doubt?). It is definitely worth a viewing
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