Buried

I turned down the opportunity to go and see the re-released 'Back to the Future' with my mates on Wednesday night in order to make sure I saw 'Buried' before it vanishes out of the cinemas. I reasoned that a film entirely set inside the confines of a coffin would be hugely better viewed inside a massive dark room with surround sound than in my house. Winnersh Showcase have stopped showing it already, so me and 9 other randoms spread ourselves liberally around the Odeon in Bracknell (I snuck into one of the 'Premier' seats - how naughty am I?!) for 90 minutes of buried-alive trauma.

At least trauma was what I was expecting. 'Buried' has been marketed and reviewed as something of a game-changer for thrillers. Being buried alive is many people's worst fear (one of my own too), and you would think that by filming the experience in such an up close and personal way the fear would be more physical and terrifying than ever. I was disappointed that I didn't feel much in the way of fear at all, since the directorial style (always in a box) left me feeling somewhat bored.

Bored is not a word that I like to use lightly when describing a film, but when I look at my watch and then look again later to discover that only 5 minutes have passed, something is wrong. To put it simply, not enough actually happens in the film for it to be interesting. Guy is in a hostage in box, guy has frustrating phone calls while in box, guy wishes he wasn't in box - that's basically it. Ok so at one point there's a snake in his coffin, and at another point he is sent a video of another hostage being shot, but I didn't feel like I was part of the story. Seeing everything from inside the box kind of removed any context from the plot, something that ultimately left me feeling tired and willing the end on.

When the end comes it's no surprise. There is a nice part near the end that hints at a metaphor of the US government and corporations selling out their soldiers and citizens when the going gets tough - but it was too little too late to grab my attention. I was very disappointed.