This movie took me completely by surprise and what strong political tones this film has. Yeah, I've heard countless rave reviews about how effective and intense it is for being in a box for 90 minutes. Still, it's something that you can't really take someone's word on. No matter how many great I heard this movie was; I kept coming back to the same thing. Its 90 minutes in a box with Ryan Reynolds. The guy who has starred in such awful movies as The Proposal and Just Friends. Needless to say, his performance surprised me just as the much as the movie. He gives his best performance and is finally showing signs of becoming a good to great actor and is slowly starting to do more quality films. Recently he has starred in movies like Paper Man and The Nines. Neither of which were amazing, but they do show that Reynolds does have potential.
Now, back to Buried. It's incredibly well done. For me, being claustrophobic, what Reynolds character goes through is probably the most terrifying thing I could think of. Just the thought of being buried alive makes me have to get up and walk around. The movie really does a nice job with its claustrophobic setting and manages to keep the tension at a high level the entire time. It reminds me of Hitchcock's Rear Window, in that we don't leave where the main character is. We see what he sees and nothing more. Hitchcock did have more to work with. We could look out a window and converse with a few other characters face to face. With Buried, all we can do is stare at Ryan Reynolds and watch him talk on the phone. It shouldn't work, but it does.
I'm still stunned at how intense and suspenseful this film was. Director Rodrigo Cortès and Ryan Reynolds show that intensity isn't defined by how much you have to work with, but by how you present the material. The story leads up to an amazing ending that was incredibly well done and left me with the chills. It truly is an incredible movie and don't let your preconceived thoughts detour you away from giving this a look.
