Buried Review

Rodrigo Cortez's film Buried, presents a seemingly interesting conceit. A young truck driver in Iraq is kidnapped and buried in a box somewhere in the desert. For the sake of honesty, you should really know that the entire film takes place in this box. Depending on your taste in film this either sounds like an exciting filmmaking challenge or a stupid idea that limits the dramatic potential of the picture. Well, truth be told, it's a little bit of both.

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The first 45 minutes of the film (about half of the movie) is not very strong. The writing and decision making of the main (read only visually seen) character is extremely suspect. Ryan Reynolds gives a fine performance, but the fact of the matter is that he is not given much to work with. In my mind, the first half of the film lacks coherent logic and instead chooses to rest upon audio cues and visual tricks to heighten suspense. Though some of these moments are executed to perfection, they feel forced and artificial, leaving the viewer with the feeling that Buried is more like an extended film school project than a full fledged and well designed thriller. In terms of creating a claustrophobic psychological study, Coretz falls short of true success. One  can say with certainty that the film is similar to 127 Hours but unlike Danny Boyle's films, Buried is not artistically or viscerally satisfying. As well, the political message of the film is poorly presented. Like Paul Greengrass' The Green Zone, Buried is heavy-handed with it's presentation of the Iraq War. Rather than treating the viewer like an intelligent human being, the film force-feeds it's message, thereby diluting it's power. If you're interested in a solid piece of political-thriller filmmaking that will not insult your intelligence, I highly recommend The Ghost Writer.

With all of this said, it should be noted that the second half of the film, particularly the final 20 minutes, is extremely engaging. The audience finally feels like they are part of the action rather than a passive observer  of this poor man's desperate situation. Also, the story finally starts to present some interesting dilemmas and twists. Still, it's too little too late and the viewer is left wishing that Cortez would have simply used the final portion of the movie to create an engaging short film. In the end, Buried is a weak entry into the thriller genre.        

Grade: C

Dan