People in Wooden Boxes Shouldn't Throw Phones

What better way to spend a rainy, blustery Sunday lunchtime than by watching a 90-minute suspense-fest at the Curzon? In Buried, Ryan Reynolds plays an American truck driver who has been contracted in Iraq and who wakes up to find himself in a coffin, buried underground somewhere in Iraq. His convoy was intercepted and there was fighting and he really doesn't know where he is but he does have a phone (although it takes him some time to switch the language from Arabic into English) and a lighter. Oh and not much oxygen so panicking isn't going to be a good plan. And yet, his wife isn't answering her cell and most of the other people he calls aren't particularly helpful.

It's difficult to say much more without spoiling things but it was suitably suspenseful for my tastes and Reynolds did a great job--at least his face and hands did; they were really all we got to see. I was, however, expecting to be very freaked out by this film and I wasn't at all. In fact, part way through I was almost chuckling to myself about claustrophobia and other such silly fears. Until Reynolds's character wakes up to find a snake slithering down his leg. Having had ophidiophobia for as long as I can remember, I was then highly freaked--the BBFC didn't say anything about any snakes, sustained or otherwise--and realised I should be more sympathetic towards people with fears of confined spaces (if not grapefruits). The woman in front of me, who had talked her way through the adverts and trailers, developed a loud and sustained cough as soon as the film started. This degree of empathy was, I thought, a little excessive.

On a slightly more spoilerish note...



...The phone in question looked like a fairly decent CrackBerry thus...did it not have GPS on it? This film was set in 2006 but my CrackBerry, bought soon after then, had a pseudo-GPS on it, which could have helped to narrow down his location more quickly. Failing that I might have used the lighter to burn a hole in the coffin and dig my way out. We already know he's not buried very deeply...