The overall film is not too impressive, but Cortes shows promise

 Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is an American truck driver that is working as a contractor in Irag in 2006, and one day he wakes up to nothing but pitch darkness. He feels around trying to figure out where he is, and with a lighter lights up to what he finds is a wooden coffin. As anyone would Paul begins to panic, and has starts screaming and banging on the sides of the coffin. Then he hears this buzzing noise and the coffin lights up, and Paul realizes it is a phone that someone has planted there with him. He starts to frantically call different numbers, some of which being the police and his family, but he is having very little luck getting anyone to really buy into his story. Paul begins to remember that he was ambushed while driving, and he knows his best bet at survival is himself.


Honestly, this was a very odd film. Seemingly the story isn't too fresh of material, as we have all heard of a man being buried alive in plenty of movies right? But Buried was actually an extremely creative film, as the entire movie was shot in a coffin. I have really never seen anything like this, which did turn out to be a little annoying. I found some of the film to be horribly boring, and even my mom asked if we could turn it off about 30 minutes of the way through. Also, the story and characters get a little lost in the film towards the middle, as Rodrigo Cortes loses all focus and turns to proving his strong point, which is one I somewhat disagree with. I mean, I get what Rodrigo Cortes is trying to say, but I find it hard to believe that there would be such little effort to find a missing person, and that is where I thought the movie took a very unrelastic turn. Which is in the end my biggest complaint.


With that said, Buried is by no means at all a terrible movie. This being Rodrigo Cortes' debut, he really did an excellent job. The faults in this film were no doubt because of him, but some of the best parts of the film were also his good direction. Like I mentioned earlier, the film did get a little boring, but it all took place in a coffin, so what can you expect? Rodrigo Cortes really did a good job with the direction and keeping the crowd interested. Aside from the parts I mentioned, the film was really a nail biter. as the movie came to a close I found myself literally about to fall out of my chair I was so far on the edge. The ending was expected, but at the same time Cortes did a superb job keeping it unpredictable at times. I had pretty much decided before the movie started what I thought the ending was going to be, but there was always the last 10 minutes the really had me question myself, and it was a great ending.


However, the most impressive part had to be the acting by Ryan Reynolds. He really put everything he has into his performance, and I must say, I am definitely in no way a fan of his. I mean X-Men, Smokin' Aces, Paper man, and The proposal? Will someone shoot me please? He has played in good films, but seriously some of the bad ones are just a complete waste of money. Even if they only cost 1$. So as of recently I have really not liked him, but this movie started to change my mind a bit. The opening scene where Conroy relizes he is trapped starts of a little shaky. Actually a little laughable there for a second. But once the movie gets into the main parts, Reynolds performance becomes very, very good. Was it Oscar worthy? No. The guy was in a box the whole time, I can't give him too much praise. But yes, Ryan Reynolds did an excellent job acting here.


Overall, Buried does not fall under my category for one of the best of 2010. I would not really even give it an honorable mention either. This movie was just your basic entertainment, with a little bit of surprising direction, and above average acting making it better than it should have been. The creativity was definitely there, but it made the film a bit odd, and not necessarily in a good way. Also give credit to the music in this film, maybe nothing super special, but it really made some of the scenes in the film pretty intense. Buried was a good film that was an excellent debut for Rodrigo Cortes. No doubt worth a watch here.

3.5/5