Perpetual frat-boy Van Wilder trades in his iconic red Solo cup for the confines of a coffin in Rodrigo Cortès’s new thriller, Buried. From the very first scene of the film, the audience is also resigned to this tragic fate, as the camera stubbornly remains trapped inside of the coffin for the entire 94-minute duration of the film. But what was intended to be an audacious, artistic decision turns out to be a cheap ploy to keep the audience distracted from the unintelligible storyline and irrelevant political commentary the film espouses.
Set in modern-day Iraq, Buried tells the tale of Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), a U.S. contractor who wakes to find himself the victim of a kidnapping, buried alive unless he can somehow get his hands on $5 million dollars for his ransom. Equipped with a lighter, pen, and cell phone rapidly losing battery (which—with unexpected longevity to rival the menorah—miraculously endures for the entire film), Paul frantically places calls to various government agencies, only to find himself entangled in bureaucratic apathy. The government’s inadequacy and lack of concern for Paul’s predicament is meant to be a feeble jab at our country’s emotional disregard for the Americans sent to the Middle East. Regardless of the validity of these claims, this political agenda proved awkward amidst this super-charged thriller. In the same way we scoffed at Sex and the City 2 for attempting to comment on U.S.-Middle East relations, here too it is all too clear that the film’s political agenda is just an afterthought tacked on in an attempt to give some depth to a thematically shallow film.
The artistic integrity of the movie, however, is occasionally salvaged by Cortès’s innovative camerawork. Tight shots induce bouts of claustrophobia, but more impressively succeed at the arduous task of maintaining the audience’s attention while shackled to a tiny box. The lens attacks at all angles, invading Reynolds’s privacy as it frenetically whips around, mimicking Paul’s panic. Reynolds, too, must be commended for his impressive leap from the lowbrow comedies and forgettable action flicks that define his career to this exhausting one-man performance. His portrayal of Paul is remarkably believable, although occasionally undermined by the convoluted script and minimal human interaction. Still, Buried sparks a curiosity in Reynolds’s potential as an actor by highlighting a range he rarely explores.
Although transferring from low-brow comedy to Oscar-worthy films is one of the most challenging tasks for a comedic actor, Reynolds’s performance shows that he deserves a chance to prove himself, ideally in a feature that doesn’t rely on a restrictive gimmick to gain notoriety. And if all else fails, I guess the world could always use a few more romantic comedies.
