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90In theory, we go to movies for enjoyment. Director Rodrigo Cortés inverts that notion with Buried, a terrific, claustrophobic, fist-clenching film in which he tortures his audience in exquisite fashion.
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88The use of 2:35 wide screen paradoxically increases the effect of claustrophobia. I would not like to be buried alive.
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88This exercise in racked nerves makes most of the year's thrillers look like flailing maniacs by comparison.
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88Those drawn to unusual, unflinching feats of filmmaking and rare acting turns as well as sustained suspense will be captivated by Buried.
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88The movie works not because of twists and switchbacks in the narrative, but because of the skill with which Cortés has conceived this singularly disturbing nightmare.
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83Balanced precariously between a horror film and a war movie, but it's so sly and assured that you can't dismiss the allegorical, even satirical undertones that Cortés teases out of Sparling's conceit.
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80It's brilliantly silly entertainment whose flaws are glaring only in hindsight; in the moment, you'll have much more fun if you stop looking for holes in the script and join Paul in looking for a way out.
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80Just when it seems he's left himself with no way out, he comes up with a finish guaranteed to leave you breathless.
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80A brutally intense indie that commits to its bleak premise and doesn't back down. Tarantino will cackle as he watches.
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80The movie's real asset is Reynolds himself, utilizing his comedy chops for unexpected levity.
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80In purely cinematic terms, Buried, set in late 2006, is an ingenious exercise in sustained tension that would make Alfred Hitchcock turn over in his grave.
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78You've got to hand it to Reynolds, director Cortés, and screenwriter Chris Sparling; they milk every single frisson of nail-ripping anxiety from a stunningly simple – yet universally recognized and dreaded – conceit and then cap it with a payoff of molar-pulverizing intensity.
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75This is a movie best seen cold.
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75Inky-black humor does strike on occasion, and when it does, it's surprising. So is the movie's star, who sweats and shrieks with game intensity and a capacity for discomfort that would impress a Byzantine saint.
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75Unfortunately, as the phone battery wears down, the plot's theatrics heat up to pot-boiling degrees of incredulity – a senile mother, a vicious personnel director, even a coiled serpent, all vie to raise the ante. Talk about your bad day.
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75You have to remind yourself to breathe.
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75The effect is genuinely creepy, but do not even think of seeing Buried if you suffer from claustrophobia.
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75Buried is as much about dropped calls, getting sent to voicemail, and being openly lied to by our institutions as it about being buried alive by terrorists.
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70The best parts of Sparling's script play like an absurdist snuff film.
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67The political angle is gratuitous, even foolish, and certainly a distraction from the movie's visual strengths.
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63On a technical level Buried is impressive, at times blisteringly suspenseful.
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63A well-made, excruciating exercise in containment and sustained suspense. It's a breakout moment for Reynolds. Is it a fun hour and a half? No. But it succeeds within its own straitened contours. It's an intriguing squirm. Now, please get me outta here.
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50Ninety minutes of being buried alive with Ryan Reynolds: Didn't we all suffer that in "The Proposal"?
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50Buried works better as an evocation of "Twilight Zone'' eeriness. Even then, it's silly and gimmicky.
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50Director Rodrigo Cortes intends us to feel trapped, twitchy and unhappy and at the same time, wildly grateful we're not actually in the box like Paul. I could do without that kind of guilt trip from a film.
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50As a cautionary tale about the perils of nation building, this is both creepy and provocative, but director Rodrigo Cortés blows it in the last few minutes with a rushed ending that feels like a cheat after all the escalating tension.
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45Your enjoyment - if that's the right word - of Buried will hinge on two things: Your ability to tolerate situations in which characters are confined to very tight spaces, and your willingness to be emotionally manipulated in the cheapest way imaginable.
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Rodrigo Cortes keeps the action bound to the box, limiting his lighting to naturalistic approximations, so that much of Reynolds's performance consists of him grunting and heaving in the dark.
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30In the movie's cheapest, most exploitative gesture - just as it is about to run out of tricks - a snake slithers into the pine box in which Paul awakens bound and gagged, not knowing where he is. With that gimmick, the movie sacrifices its last shred of integrity.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 26 out of 35
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Mixed: 3 out of 35
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Negative: 6 out of 35
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