FAQ

Paul was buried only two to three feet underground, and since the nearby bombings were violent, the noises were audible and they shook his coffin.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), an American truck driver working in the Iraq desert, wakes up to find himself bound, gagged, and buried inside a large wooden box with only a cigarette lighter, his cellphone, a flask of alcohol, his anti-anxiety medication, a knife, glowsticks, and a pencil. He tries calling for help: 9-1-1, his wife Linda, the FBI, his employer, friends—but he either gets an answering machine, is disconnected, or they hang up on him when he borders on hysteria. Then he hears from his captor, an Iraqi insurgent named Jabir (José Luis García-Pérez) (voice) who demands $5 million dollars from the Embassy before he will release Paul from the box. Paul's only hope of rescue before the oxygen runs out lies in a hostage rescue group led by Dan Brenner (Robert Paterson) (voice).

Buried is an original screenplay written by American screenwriter Chris Sparling.

No. Paul occasionally receives images and videos from his captors from unknown locations. He also hallucinates seeing the coffin lid opening at one point, though nothing is shown but a bright light. There are no flashbacks or cutaways showing anything other than what's happening inside the box.

Paul has a signal, but it's buried, and he loses it a few times in the film. Dan Brenner comes to the conclusion that Paul must only be buried a couple of feet underground, since he was able to get a signal.

The movie occurs in real time and runs for approximately 90 minutes, from the time that Paul wakes up inside the box until the end of the movie.

When Paul is just about to give up hope, Brenner says they saved another hostage named Mark White who is now home. By the end, however, Brenner digs up White and not Paul, so the question remains as to what really happened to Mark White.

Three possibilities have been offered:

1. Brenner was telling the truth.

2. White was also kidnapped in Iraq in a similar situation just weeks before, and it was he who was saved.

3. Brenner was lying about saving White in an attempt to give Paul hope. The film itself gives little reason to believe one possibility over the other, however most viewers conclude that the third is most probable.

Yes. The camera pans down the lid of the coffin, lit by the flashlight, showing the name "Mark White" in the square that Paul Conroy wrote earlier. Given how the movie ends, the scene is most likely set during the movie not afterwards.

Most estimates range from 60 to 90 minutes without an air source, longer if there is a source of airflow. Paul survived about 90 minutes in the coffin. He also panicked, breathed heavily, coughed, puked, spoke on the phone, and burned a cigarette lighter, which would use up significantly more oxygen than just controlled breathing, so we're to assume that he still had some air left, possibly from the snake hole.

Other considerations to take into account include:

1. Paul was buried in sand, which is more porous than dirt.

2. The depth at which Paul was buried. Brennan estimated that Paul was buried two to three feet since he was able to receive reception for his cell phone.)

3. The size of the coffin was much larger than a normal coffin.

However, the problem of survival is compounded by the fact that, while the victim is breathing in oxygen, he is also breathing out carbon dioxide. Poisoning due to excess CO2 in the environment can result in loss of consciousness and convulsions before the oxygen ever runs out.

In 2003, the television program Mythbusters broadcast an episode titled Buried Alive, which tested the myth to see if someone could survive being buried alive for two hours but discovered that a significant problem was that the coffin began to bend under the weight of the earth used to cover it, and the experiment had to be aborted.