There was a point during Buried when the decision to forgo the usual note taking became necessary in favour of absolute immersion in the onscreen action. In fact, it was during the opening 60-seconds of pitch-blackness, accompanied solely by quick, laboured breathing and a looming sense of terror. The scene was finally lit via the naked flame of a Zippo lighter, revealing Ryan Reynolds gagged, bound and trapped inside a coffin. Cue instant panic, stifling claustrophobia and the most inventive 94-minutes you’ll spend in the cinema this year.  

Paul Conroy (Reynolds) is a blue-collar guy and a civilian contractor in Iraq, taking a little risk to make a few extra tax-free dollars for his family. Being buried alive wasn’t exactly in the plan, but then nothing in that region ever was. Having orientated himself Conroy discovers a half-charged mobile phone, which doubles up as an alternative source of illumination and as means to contact the outside world, be it the FBI, his employers or his kidnappers. This will go on until the battery depletes or the oxygen supply runs out, whichever comes first.  

As high-concept goes, Buried is certainly at the extremity. What separates it from similar films like Open Water (2003), another genre thriller playing on primal fears, is technical confidence, total commitment and sheer audacity from director Rodrigo Cortés and star Reynolds. No cuts to concerned-looking telephone operators, a tearful spouse, rescuers or captors – all the action takes place inside the rectangular prison, time ticking away on Conroy’s chance of survival. For those prone to anxiety, or with an affliction to being placed on hold at a time of emergency, Buried will be a desperate experience beyond their normal capacity.  

Cortés explores the space expertly, finding an impossible number of angles to shoot, enhancing not only the action but also the sense of physical and emotional isolation. Inside the box the director has a few tricks up his sleeve, one such slippery device might actually cause you heart to stop momentarily and resent the filmmaker’s apparent sadism. Course, how you react depends on the degree you buy into the circumstance and stakes at hand. Responsibility for this falls squarely on the script and Reynolds’ performance, and boy does he deliver.  

It represents a new chapter of recognition for the guy formerly known as Van Wilder, whose most recent contributions include Sandra Bullock’s love interest in The Proposal and as Deadpool in the critical deadzone Wolverine. For some, Reynolds has always shown promise beyond his hulking physique, chiselled looks, nice guy charm and comic timing. Actually when you put it like that the package was already pretty good. In Buried, Reynolds digs deep and finds hitherto untested emotional range that runs the gamut and carries the film without the aid of a grinning volleyball. Take that Academy Award winner Tom Hanks.  

Fear, frustration, anger, resentment, sorrow and more, Conroy convincingly endures it all and as an audience it’s near impossible to avoid excess doses of sympathy pain. Indeed, a couple of excruciating telephony exchanges almost take things too far, one involving a heartbreaking call to his mother and the second a darkly comic interview with the HR department of his employer. While the former is in keeping with the film’s emotional core, the latter tunes into a political landscape it cannot avoid engaging.  

Because Buried is not simply a high-concept thriller in a box, Chris Sparling’s script has a thing or two to say about corporate bureaucracy and the disenfranchisement of the American people. Unfortunately those statements are a little clumsy on the delivery and an unnecessary reminder you’re watching a ‘Movie’. Nevertheless, it hardly diminishes what is otherwise a Hitchcockian tour de force.  

Don’t wait to catch this one on DVD. If you think you’re brave enough, and even if you aren’t, Buried demands to be experienced on the big screen in all its suffocating, claustrophobic glory.

Buried opens in cinemas on Thursday, October 7.