Buried

Buried begins in darkness. Moments pass with only the sound of a man’s rattling breath. The flame of a lighter flickers on and the audience are finally introduced to their surroundings. We are in a coffin, with only Ryan Reynolds’s disorientated Paul Conroy for company. And we will remain here for the next two hours. There are no dream sequences or flashbacks to give the audience respite. We are every bit as trapped as our protagonist.

This is an audacious piece of art house cinema from Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes. The premise is simple, but the suspense and claustrophobia wrought from the film’s confined setting makes for unforgettable viewing. This is a Hitchcockian thriller hurled into the post-9/11 world.

With only a few props and a mobile phone for company, Reynolds gives the best performance of his career. He invests incredible terror, desperation, and incredulous frustration into his role as a U.S Truck Driver taken hostage by Iraqi extremists. He battles not only his captors, but the hopelessly out of their depth 911 operators whom he manages to reach, and a U.S. government stubbornly unwilling to negotiate with terrorists. As Cortes cranks up the tension, Reynolds' desperation turns to hopeless paranoia as he begins to question the faceless voices on the other end of the line who are charged with saving his life.

With the clock ticking furiously down, and Conroy’s air running low, we too hold our breath and desperately will his escape. If you can get over the issue of which mobile phone operator could possibly send signal to a coffin buried deep underground, then you will be trapped in a mesmerising and original piece of cinema.

Alex Riddle