Buried (2010)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Paul Conroy	Ryan Reynolds
Pamela Lutti	Ivana Miño
Dan Brenner	Robert Paterson
Jabir	José Luis García Pérez
Alan Davenport	Stephen Tobolowsky
Linda Conroy	Samantha Mathis

Review

Buried, one of the most idiosyncratic releases of 2010, tells of an American truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up to find himself bound in a wooden box, ostensibly buried underground. The setup, which was handled expertly by Alfred Hitchcock decades ago, is chilling in nature, and in deploying only one single set and one single actor, the film's impressive sense of drive and narrative is something of an achievement by Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés. The claustrophobic feel we share with Paul is every now and again relieved by small glimpses of hope stemming from Paul's more or less successful use of the mobile phone he finds buried with him. The intense nature of Paul's situation makes Buried a horror film of sorts, although the real horror unfolds in the unseen world outside of the coffin, as Paul seems to phone up a collection of the planet's most selfish and inconsiderate people. Buried's worldview turns out to be altogether sinister, soaked in a pessimism which is hard to justify in a work of art. As such, the film has little valuable to communicate, but it remains a technically accomplished and in many ways effective film. It bears resemblance to 127 Hours, another 2010 entry in the isolation subgenre, but in comparison, it lacks the humanity of its counterpart.