Buried

Paul Conroy (played by Ryan Reynolds) awakes to find himself in a wooden box, buried underground. He is a civilian contractor and truck-driver in Iraq. His convoy was ambushed and he was taken captive and buried alive. He has a limited amount of air, giving him a limited time to find a way out. All he has to aid him in this task is his cigarette lighter, a torch, a mobile phone and his will to live.

Minimalist yet highly original, intriguing and tension-filled.

Probably the most minimalist movie ever made. The entire movie is filmed inside a wooden box, a wooden box with one occupant (well, one human occupant...). One actor - Ryan Reynolds - has 100% of the screen time, though there are voices of other actors involved.

Incredibly engrossing and tension-filled. Until the very last moment you don't know how things are going to work out. Director Rodrigo Cortes and writer Chris Sparling keep you on tenterhooks throughout, teasing you with thoughts of one survival option being more likely than the other.

Shows you don't need a big budget to make a great movie.

Here is the proof that an intelligent movie can also be done with a low budget. The Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes mixed every element with a good balance into an interesting, never boring tense thriller. The end was very surprising and unexpected. I don't want to give more details here. Just watch it. I bought the DVD very cheap. Ryan Reynolds delivered a very respectable performance. The running time with 91 minutes was perfect. Buried is not based on true events but it is not far away from the reality.

My expectations have been met. Even my wife had her doubts before but then she looked it with high attention.

At the end we gave both a solid rating of 7/10.

Original and ingeniously basic premise full of suspense and intrigue in spite of developing only one scenario. Paul (Ryan Reynolds) is an U.S. truck driver working in Iraq . After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes up to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. He encounters within the coffin a working phone, which allows him contact with the outside world. With only a lighter and a cellphone it's a race against time to getaway this claustrophobic death trap . Paul must rely on his owns resources to survive , taking on serpent and burying .

This freaky and clever film chronicles fear ,desperation, paranoia of a kidnapped trucker in Iraq who faces off a completely Kafkaesque situation . This is a thrilling film in which the abducted starring quest to find answers and solutions to why he's imprisoned and getting freedom . The buried trucker very well performed by Ryan Reynolds works utilizing his skills and talents to survive the deadly trap which guard the coffin with serpent and falling down included , as using his intelligence he attempts to avoid get smashed because the coffin is caving itself in .

The picture succeeds because the thriller, tension , as well as a superbly written script delving into the human psyche in such extreme situation and our instinctive urges for survival . Despite low budget the picture manages to be intelligent, intriguing and thrilling. The good thing about this film is that the director made it on a shoestring budget only having to do one set , yet the movie works on many levels but is constantly reconfigured . The trucker contacts by means of cellular phone with the outside world asking for help various characters , they are played -voices-by prestigious American secondaries as Stephen Tobolowski , Kali Rocha and Erik Palladino ; furthermore Samantha Mathis who plays another hostage .The interesting plot bears special resemblance to 'The cube' and ¨Fermat's room¨ but also there's a dangerously premise with strangers closed attempting to find an exit to exasperating situations. Good musical score fitting to tension by Victor Reyes who is also film producer . Fine cinematography , and naturally , plenty of dark and shades by Eduard Grau . The motion picture is originally directed by Rodrigo Cortes . Rating : Good , better than average .

I hate it when fantastic movies such as this get completely overlooked when it comes time for awards to be handed out. Buried is a triumph in minimalist filmmaking and is a heart wrenchingly intense movie experience. It is gripping, moving, frustrating, and terrifying. Oh yeah, and it all takes place inside a box. Paul Conroy, who is played by Ryan Reynolds and is the only character in the movie we actually see, wakes up in a coffin buried under the ground with no idea how he got there or who put him there. He shortly finds out that he is being held by ransom by a group of terrorists in Iraq. With only a pen, a flask, a cell phone, and only 90 minutes of oxygen, Paul has to act fast. The movie limits itself to an astounding extent, but makes the most out of what it has, creating an incredibly thrilling experience.

How much can you really expect from a movie that takes place in a human sized box with only one person? Buried delivers a lot more than you would expect from this scenario. It has all the right elements to make it as enthralling as any action film we see today. To start off, Rodrigo Cortes does a great job directing his limited space. He miraculously pulls off a lot of great shots and brilliant claustrophobic nuances. He directs with enough skill to keep the movie interesting in its entirety. The movie never felt lagged or drawn out and every moment where it would have slowed down it would throw a great twist or shocking moment that drew you right back in.

Furthermore, the director does a lot of great artistic work with what little he to work with. We have to take into consideration the fact that when you are buried underground in a coffin, there is obviously zero light. Thankfully Paul has various light sources with him in the coffin. And so to keep from breaking the realism of the film, these light sources are the only light in the film, making sure all light is authentic. Paul's light sources include a lighter, a flashlight, a cell phone, and a green glow stick. Each of these light sources gives off a different color, and these colors which obviously encompass everything when they are present add to and reflect the mood of the film. When things are calmer (relatively of course) we are treated to the soft blue light of the cell phone. As things grow more suspenseful and harrowing we are treated to scenes lit by the green glow stick. And when things grow more sinister the red lens of the flashlight is used. I found these minute details fascinating and they artistically added a lot to a film which had little room to work with.

While Cortes' directing gives the film plenty of life, Ryan Reynold's stalwart performance really drives the emotion of the film. He delivers a top notch performance, and he as to seeing as he is the only character in the film other than the various people he talks to on the phone which we never actually see. It can't be easy to carry a film all by yourself, but this year we were treated to two performances that did a superb job at it, the other of course being James Franco in 127 Hours.

Buried is a film that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of. It is a groundbreaking thriller that does so much with so little. It is such a harrowing movie experience that you cannot forget. All 90 minutes of this film are fascinating and gripping, especially the last fifteen. The final moments of the film are some of the most captivating and enthralling moments I've ever experienced through film. During the finale of the film you will want nothing more than to know the fate of Paul Conroy, and when you finally do learn his fate at the close of the film your jaw will drop and you will be utterly blown away by such a captivating on screen experience.

Buried is a film that keeps things deadly simple, one character, one location and a one line but horribly inspired plot, those looking for flashy visuals or big action should turn far, far away from this one. It's worth noting though that the film is well directed and photographed, director Rodrigo Cortes has a nimble eye for visuals and angles to keep things visually interesting, while cinematographer Eduard Grau gets the best out of the mere two light sources to make the experience a frighteningly vivid one. The plot sees Ryan Reynolds waking up in a coffin, with nothing more than a cell-phone and his lighter to help him out, things develop through his series of fraught, occasionally bleakly amusing and increasingly desperate communications with the outside world. Its rather interesting to see a film so based around interactions on a mobile phone, devices so often objects of fear, suspicion, or in the case of some horror films and of course the cinematic experience for the viewer, irritations. Here every ring is crucial, the battery bar is nail-biting, even the light of the screen is important. For me, just as interesting was the choice of lead. I've never had time for Ryan Reynolds, a face from some of the worst in lowbrow comedy and someone I never expected to appreciate breaking through into not just serious film but something as bold in its structure as this. A lot of people are likely to dislike the film on a fundamental level, but Reynolds gives the performance of his life here, running through a rainbow of emotions, angry, sarcastic and terrified are but a few. Compelling and sympathetic, likely physically arduous too (though I'd don't know how the film was made it must have been tough, barring serious trickery) he holds the film wonderfully. The script is of course of utmost importance too, and writer Chris Sparling does mostly terrific work. An ordinary man reacting as best he can to a nightmare, drawing on the sort of resourcefulness he probably hoped he'd never need, occasionally breaking down but keeping ploughing on, shades of dark humour in the protagonist's travails on the phone, its endlessly interesting and as time goes on, nail-bitingly suspenseful. I had minor issues with realism in the film, and there was at least one interesting little aside that could have been developed a bit more, but overall this is a great achievement. It surely won't appeal to everyone and my rating might seem generous, but for doing this well on such a risky concept, and putting together a suspenser that remains thought provoking after, a 9/10 from me.