Buried (2010)

(Major spoilers ahead.)

All right. I don't know where to go with this movie, which is why it's currently getting a medium rating. If I were absolutely decided it would be either much higher (which is where I think it's going to go) or much lower.

Ryan Reynolds really pulls off this performance. He's one of those actors who is only interesting and charming when he's not trying to be. He's not a soldier, he's not a police officer, he's a truck driver, and he has never had to mentally prepare himself for being in this kind of situation. He rants and raves and panics, just as the average man would do if he found himself buried alive. Even when he realizes it may use his oxygen quicker, his sympathetic nervous system is kicking in hardcore and causing him to panic.

The movie *is* tense. Absolutely. Especially toward the end, as the sand begins to fill his box, I found myself hardly able to breathe along with him. This movie got compared a lot in the reviews to 127 Hours, which I loved. But there's one vital difference between this one and that: in that one, the hero makes it out alive. In Buried, they build up the tension and build it and build it and build it and then suddenly dash every single hope... and the credits roll. I was absolutely unprepared for this. You expect this to be a thriller, you expect, hold onto the belief that the hero is going to make it out of this situation. Of course he is. That's how these movies work.

My initial reaction was of feeling cheated and very angry. I had a similar reaction to Life is Beautiful, where I felt lied to about the direction the movie was going. A few weeks later, I was able to look back on it and give it a much higher rating because I appreciated the artistry of it. I have a suspicion something similar will happen with this, although, frankly, I don't think I could ever watch this movie again. 3.5 stars.