Buried

Yeah, Buried is a very interesting film that takes place in one coffin with one man, one lighter, one mobile phone, one pen… but to tell you the truth, all that minimalism ends up being almost too limiting. I would have liked to have a look somewhere out of that box, which is proof that the creators didn’t fully manage to turn an attractive premise into a feature film. Buried is certainly worth watching, it’s one of the best thrillers of the year, but it didn’t make me bite my nails or get up from my chair in tension, and the logic leaves the stage too often for my taste. 70 % (24/12/2010)

FUUUUUUCK! A tricky situation, don’t you think? An ingenious idea to shut a guy in a coffin and then to take all his hopes away one by one. That in itself has the potential for at very least some breathtaking, erm... entertainment (?) that can be completely emotionally draining for the viewer. Buried remains somewhere in mid journey, and its main enemy is time. If the movie were an hour long and it could have been absolutely perfect, this way it’s one and a half hours and is “merely" above average. The side-stories are so unlikely that they are damaging and take the attention away from the most important aspect, intruding into the stifling atmosphere which the absolutely amazing direction managed to create. The camerawork and the lighting are first rate. And we also have Ryan Reynolds who gives the performance of a lifetime. An extraordinary picture. What’s your social security number? (23/12/2010)

The equipment from which MacGyver would make a mining drill, an air supply that exceeds the physical limit of volume and a phone signal that would make a regular operator pay in gold are compensated by an unpredictable plot and an excellent Ryan Reynolds. What is most surprising is that the director squeezes the original concept throughout the entire runtime, without any significant slump or climax. Rodrigo Cortés is a concept for the future, and not just for those opening "Hitchcock credits." 4 ½. (29/12/2010)

Let's put an uninteresting man in a coffin and watch how uninteresting he is. The main character's hideous defeatism at a point when he could at least try to break out those already cracked coffin boards, but he'd rather take revenge on whoever threw him in there by making his phone bill more expensive by making one international call after another. It also wasn’t until the second half of the film that someone finally explained to the director that fire takes oxygen, among other things, so we can't be surprised that for the first 30 minutes the protagonist lights his Zippo just to lie down. On the other hand, the ending left me feeling with a really bad taste in my mouth, and a film that takes place entirely in a coffin can be made little better. (30/07/2012)

Logic gets a beating in a much harsher way than I'm used to in the thriller genre, and everything relies solely on Ryan Reynolds. He delivers an equally likable performance as usual, but unfortunately, he doesn't have and couldn't have the ability to carry the whole film on the surface of a single coffin, even with enough oxygen and signal. The salvation of the poorly executed, good concept is the ending, which, despite my slight apathy towards the protagonist's actions, stretched me to the brink of breaking. (09/01/2011)