Buried

Holy crap. Normally I'd wait a day or two before I threw out my crappy review of a movie, but this one kind of sticks with you, so I feel like I need to go ahead and get this one out.

The basic premise of this movie, as one Lane Staley so eloquently put it, is about a "man in the box." That man is Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds. Conroy awakens to find himself trapped in a wooden coffin after a convoy he's a part of is ambushed in Iraq. Having only a lighter, some anxiety pills, and a flask of booze,  he does what any of us would do in that situation: he flips his shit. 

As he's trying to figure out what's going on, a cellphone that has been left in the coffin with him begins to ring.  Because the language on the phone is Arabic, he's at the mercy of the phone and can do nothing more than send and receive calls and videos. As with most movie cellphones, this one is capable of multiple feats that no ordinary cellphone can accomplish: it will ring forever before going to voicemail, but only right before it was about to be answered; instead of the normal battery indicator, it has a magical one where each bar of life blinks several times before winking out; without moving, cell signal can be great for over 10 minutes and then die completely. I was beginning to wonder if maybe he'd been shafted with AT&T's service, but this is Iraq. So chances are it was IT&T.

So Paul begins calling everyone conceivable to try and get himself out of the coffin. He calls 911 in Ohio, who can't do much for him what with being in OHIO; he calls his wife at home, but keeps getting the machine; he calls a random woman who apparently knows his wife, but she gives him shit because he's freaking out on the phone. Eventually, he manages to get hold of the FBI, who begins to interrogate him before the signal dies. His next contact is with the State Department. They put him through to Dan Brenner, a contact in Iraq who specializes in resolving hostage/kidnapping situations, who tells Paul he's going to work to get him out, giving him the name and personal information about someone they helped save earlier to convince Paul that he's more than just some schlub no one cares about saving. 

In the meantime, the people who've kidnapped Paul have contacted him and demanded he use the phone to make a ransom video requesting $5 million. As we all know, and are reminded every single time the bad guy in a movie demands money, the US does not negotiate with terrorists, so he's screwed there. The ransom is eventually dropped down to $1 million, but 1/5th of zero chance in hell, oddly enough, is still zero chance in hell. They threaten a woman who was in the same convoy as Paul, convincing him to make the video. Paul makes the video, passes out for a bit, has a snake crawl up his pants, nearly sets the coffin on fire trying to kill the snake, all only to find out that the money didn't come in time, he's a minor YouTube celebrity, and, in a new video he's sent, the woman is killed. Paul watches the video, vomits, and passes out for a bit. 

Paul wakes up to a call from the Personnel Director at his employer (one of the people he'd called earlier) who empathizes with Paul, and then proceeds to record Paul being retroactively fired for fraternizing with the woman he just watched be killed. Since, as far as the company is concerned, Paul was fired that morning before the "situation" occurred, they are no longer responsible for anything if/when Paul dies. After the area where Paul's coffin is location is bombed in an attempt to kill the insurgents who kidnapped him, the coffin begins to leak sand. Sensing his death approaching, Paul records a will with the phone, leaving his meager possessions to his wife and son. 

Because Paul apparently won the shittiest lottery in the world that day, at least one of the kidnappers survives and demands he send them a video of him cutting off his finger for his freedom. If he refuses to harm himself, because they've taken his wallet and his driver's license, they will find and harm his family. With the little power the phone has left, Paul records himself cutting off his pinky finger. With this final act, Paul feels he's at least saved his family, regardless of what happens to him.

Spoiler time: Shortly after Paul cuts off his finger, he receives a frantic call from Dan saying that they had captured an insurgent who was leading them to an American who'd been buried alive. They're hurrying to the location to save Paul. In the middle of the call, Paul's wife finally returns his call, having left her cellphone at home. He happily tells her they're coming to get him, he's going to be OK and he'll see her soon. He transfers back to Dan as they're digging the coffin up. Paul's time is running out because the coffin has nearly filled with sand. The tension builds until, as we hear over the phone, the insurgent has led them to Mike, the person Dan told Paul he'd saved earlier to win Paul's confidence. The coffin isn't Paul's. As the last bit of sand fills the coffin, Dan apologizes for getting Paul's hopes up and not being able to save him.

Spoiler over. The movie is actually pretty good once it gets going. Think of it starting out like Castaway, except Wilson is a Zippo lighter. But then it turns into Phone Booth, but with a better actor and storyline. And a coffin. Initially, I thought this was going to be a bit of a snoozer because it did take so long to get moving, but by the end, there have been so many ups and downs that you really feel for Ryan Reynolds' character. You're rooting for him to be saved, even as it seems death is mere moments away. It's pretty impressive that beyond the video of the woman and the voices over the phone, Reynolds is the only person in the film and yet it manages to not get old. Paul, as a random contractor caught in the middle of  the Iraq conflict's aftermath, could be anyone, which makes it all the easier to put yourself in his shoes.

The movie does take a few moments about halfway through to recognize some of the inherent issues with a coffin movie: there's a limited supply of oxygen in the box, the occupant is breathing heavily and suffers from anxiety, and is perpetually using a Zippo to give himself light to see by. I'm sure somewhere, somebody far more anal than myself has done the calculations necessary to determine if there would be sufficient oxygen for everything that went on, but really, who cares. It's a movie. That's like getting all worked up about the phone being able to do stuff a normal phone doesn't do...wait...dammit...

So all in all, a very good, thrilling, edge of the seat film. I'm sure some people will be put off by the lack of real explosions, non-existent CG, the fact that it's not a remake, or because the movie actually dares to have a plot. But those people are dumb and deserve to be shunned. Shun them, Ron Perlman.

Chris

From My Playlist
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	Album:	Lights