Reviews

What would you do if you work up buried alive in a coffin, with nothing but a lighter, and a cell phone?

Ryan Reynolds delivers a fantastic performance in this exact situation. In the movie, Reynolds plays Paul, a truck driver who was delivering supplies to Iraq when his truck was attacked by some Iraqis. He wakes up 2 hours later in a coffin, buried 3 feet underground, with naught but a lighter and a cell phone. And this is where the movie begins.

For a movie that was shot entirely in a coffin, this was done pretty well. There's only one actor we see the entire movie, and that's Ryan, all the others are just voices on the phone. But it doesn't take away from the movie's feel. If anything, it adds to it. The entire movie being shot in a dark coffin, makes for a kind of... claustrophobic atmosphere. They wanted the viewers to feel how the actor was feeling. The understand his panic. To sense his fear. So, the audience stays with the actor the entire movie. he never gets a breath of fresh air, so why should we? The screen doesn't change to his wife being worried, or the FBI at their computers trying to trace his cell phone. No. It stays inside the coffin for the whole ride. and that's good. That's how it should be. It adds to the suspense.

There were multiple parts of the movie that aggravated me, not because they were bad, or didn't make sense, but because they involved phone calls to government offices, who seem (not surprisingly) more interested in money and avoiding publicity than a man's life. Now, being a man who hates the government already, I can honestly say this movie did nothing to change that. If anything, it made my feelings towards them that much worse. Because I just know, in real life, they would do the same thing.

Moving on to the acting. Ryan did a fantastic job. He portrayed the character's fear and panic quite well, and also, the moments of hysteria were done beautifully. There were also moments of sadness, and God help you if you don't cry during those moments. Overall he was brilliant, especially for being alone in the movie. And having nothing more than voices to play off of.

As for the violence, there was none. Which is extremely surprising for a Lisongate movie. The worst thing about this movie is the claustrophobic feeling. Besides that there's one scene with a snake that might freak some people out, and a scene involving bodily dismemberment, but it happens off screen, so you don't see anything. This movie is more of a suspense thriller than anything.

It was refreshing to see a thriller that didn't use gore or scare tactics. This was good old fashioned "mess with your head" type thriller that forces you to keep your eyes glued to the screen the whole time wondering what will happen to the character. You feel his fear, you feel his sadness, you feel his anger. You wish you could just jump right in there and save him yourself. The movie does a very good job of pulling you in.

It's hard to find any complaints about this movie, but if I had to, there'd only be two. The beginning, and the ending. The beginning because it is so prolonged and over done. And the ending because... well, I'm writing a spoiler-free review so I'll just say it just wasn't what I expected. Let's leave it at that.

And that's exactly what this movie does! Random humor thrown all over the place! A lot of teens nowadays (including myself) usually laugh at the out-of-nowhere, unexpected, random phrases that usually don't make sense or have a meaning. Some examples in this movie (here's where the spoilers come in) are: When Shake first introduces the Insanoflex to Metwad and he says "Behold, the Insanoflex." Metwad sees all the clothes it's covered in and responds "Behold my Elvis costume! I ain't seen this since last Halloween." Another example is when Shake is giving Metwad sex-ed and he draws a picture while explaining exposed crotches and Metwad asks "And them there is the exposed crotches?" and Shake responds "I told you already, that's the chair and the spatula." which really makes this scene random because he never actually said anything about a chair or spatula until just then. I give this movie a good rating not for plot, storyline, animation, dialog, action, drama, humor, or creativity but for just being itself.