Rating of
2/4
"Buried" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 09/11/12
A civilian contractor working in Iraq awakens to find himself trapped in a wooden coffin and buried underground. Very much the Ryan Reynolds show, Buried is set in its entirety in a wooden box with Reynolds himself being the only character to appear on screen. A bit of a "concept" film, Buried is obviously limited by its own premise; we see nothing but a man in a box being scared and desperate and talking on the phone. A lot. The film clearly hinges on Ryan's performance and he is perfectly believable in the part and its nicely shot and decently paced but like the similar 127 Hours, you cannot escape from the fact that you are just watching a bloke in a hole for 90 minutes. The attempt to spice things up featuring a serpentine intruder is just a bit daft and the "twist" at the end rather weak and unsatisfactory. In the end it's competently done but it's also extremely similar to Quentin Tarantino's CSI special which was far better. It's certainly not a complete waste of time as an interesting experiment but it's not an entirely successful one either.
