Buried

Ratings: 6.8/10

Film Class: D

Genre: Suspense Thriller

Possibly one of the lowest budget films I've ever seen - 2nd to blaire witch project. I think 90% of the film's budget probably went to the lead actor, Ryan Reynolds. Because... there's just no one else featured on screen!! *spoilers ahead* I had initially expected the story to "surface and get out of the box" but no... the entire movie was shot in a single setting.

Paul Conroy is a US citizen working as a truck driver based in Iraq. His convoy was attacked, was knocked out and woke up to find himself buried underground in a coffin with just a zippo lighter, a canister and a cell phone. Using everything he has, how is he going to survive the ordeal?

*major spoilers ahead* I was utterly disappointed with the ending. When the credits rolled, it left me in a gloomy mood... a truly depressing movie indeed. There were many loopholes in the movie; the lack of fighting spirit on the lead's part, the calls he made out using his cellphone, his lack of ability (or the director) to come up with "better" solutions, the contents of the canister is still extremely puzzling to me, the excessive use of the zippo lighter even though oxygen is low and many others. This movie lacked the "elegance" of what constitutes a good low budget film, a smooth and ingenious plot. Instead, this movie threw at its audience the incapability of the US government (almost felt as it was mocking the system and a wake up call to them by showing how incompetent they are) and the only salvaging part of the movie was the ironically disappointing ending.

The ending was disappointing to my expectations but it did justice to the movie overall. Wasn't such an unpredictable twist but at least the subtle hint of deceit was there. I'll advise you not to read on if you still haven't caught the movie because I shall attempt to explain it from my point of view. Many would think that the ending was just an "aww.. too bad, it wasn't Paul they found but someone else...", but I believe there was more to that. It also showed how the person (Dan Brenner) which Paul called deceived him into believing there was still hope even though any hopes of rescue was bleak.

But that's also not all... It was Dan's job to do so. As hard as it may have felt for the lead himself, I'm sure the person on the other side of the call wanted to help Paul as much as he could and he probably felt guilty for lying to him. It wasn't just from Paul's point of view, as the ending described it otherwise from the tone of Dan's voice. Contrary to most reviews, I think this movie didn't feature Ryan Reynold's at one of his best performances. I didn't feel that emotionally attached to him. Could be the fault of the scripting, but all in all, wasn't that great a movie.

An unnecessarily long opening credits (perhaps to prolong the screentime), a lack of plot ingenuity, perhaps too many black out scenes and too depressing a movie for me. It is indeed suspenseful, but nothing too nightmarish, terrifying nor claustrophobic.