Buried - buried alive

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Movie
German title Buried - buried alive
Original title Buried
Country of production Spain
original language English
Publishing year 2010
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Rodrigo Cortés
script Chris Sparling
production Adrián Guerra ,
Peter Safran
music Victor Reyes
camera Eduard Grau
cut Rodrigo Cortés
occupation
Ryan Reynolds (2010)

Buried - Buried Alive (Original title: Buried ) is a Spanish thriller by Rodrigo Cortés from 2010 .

The film is about Paul Conroy ( Ryan Reynolds ), an American truck driver who delivers relief supplies in Iraq . After his convoy was attacked by insurgents , he found himself buried alive in a wooden coffin. The film had its first public screening on January 23, 2010 at the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City . From September 24, 2010 it was shown in selected cinemas in the USA. The film celebrated its German premiere on October 3 at the Hamburg Film Festival before it was released in German cinemas on November 4, 2010.

action

Paul Conroy, a truck driver who works in Iraq, wakes up handcuffed and gagged in a coffin in total darkness. The only thing he notices is the hard ground, the barely bearable heat and the constantly falling oxygen content. Although at first he doesn't know how he got into the coffin or who did it to him, memories slowly return. He recalls that his convoy was attacked by insurgents and many of his colleagues were shot. Apparently only he was buried alive as a hostage. After Paul found a cell phone and a lighter lying next to him in the coffin, he tried in vain to reach his wife and his employer. Further calls, etc. a. the emergency call (911) does not get him any further, since the conversation partners focus more on the attack on the convoy. He also calls the FBI , but the connection is interrupted by the poor reception. Paul finds an unknown number in the phone memory. It's the number of his kidnapper, an insurgent. He wants the embassy to pay Paul five million dollars. If he does this, he will be dug up, otherwise he will remain “buried like a dog”. The ransom is later lowered to a million dollars as Paul declares that it is impossible to raise five million dollars in such a short time.

Paul is told in another phone call that an organization that is specifically there to find people who have been kidnapped has picked up his trail. She is already looking for Paul and will do everything possible to save him. Paul is put through to Dan Brenner, the head of this rescue team; who then tries to calm Paul down. Paul does not believe that everything will be done for him and demands that his interlocutor name a person who has already been saved by this organization. Brenner then tells him that a person named Mark White was saved only three weeks ago, which gives Paul some hope of survival.

After Paul has been on the phone for a long time to organize help, he receives a call from his kidnapper. He sends Paul a photo of his colleague with a gun pointed at her head. The insurgent demands that Paul shoot a ransom video and send it to him, otherwise his colleague will die. Eventually Paul agrees to shoot the video.

Suddenly a snake appears from Paul's pant leg, which has come through a hole in the wooden wall into the coffin. With the rest of the alcohol he carried and the lighter, however, Paul succeeds in lighting a small fire and thus driving the snake out of the wooden box.

Shortly thereafter, Paul receives a video from the kidnapper in which his colleague is shot because he did not meet the deadline for the ransom video. Paul is in despair and is about to cut his throat with his pocket knife when the words of his family and those of Dan Brenner, among other things, come to mind.

Then the coffin is shaken severely several times, the wooden ceiling collapses easily and sand trickles into it from above. The next call he receives is from his employer. He reveals to Paul that his employment contract had already expired before he was kidnapped, as he allegedly had an affair with a work colleague. Although Paul denies this, he is given notice without notice, which means that his family will not receive any life insurance money from Paul in the event of his death.

Paul phones Dan Brenner again, who explains to him that US warplanes bombed the region to kill the insurgents, even though they knew Paul was buried alive in the area. Since Paul now has to assume that his kidnappers are dead and can no longer name his whereabouts, his hope fades.

Over time, the sand trickles into the coffin much faster and Paul finally begins to shoot a video with his cell phone. This is how he writes his will. He bequeathed his savings to his wife and all of his clothes to his son, but wished he could leave them more. He also asks his son to take good care of his mother later.

After a while the mobile phone rings again. The kidnapper is on the other end and demands Paul's blood. He is supposed to cut off a finger and send the kidnapper a video of it, otherwise this will hurt Paul's family. Paul refuses, but gives in when the kidnapper reads out his address to prove he knows where Paul's family lives. With a glimmer of last hope, Paul cuts off his finger and sends his tormentor the video. Brenner calls again within a few minutes and tells him that they now know more precisely where he is. One of the insurgents gave information about where an American was buried alive.

When Paul receives the longed-for call from his wife, he tells her that he was almost found and that he will soon be rescued. Again and again the two confess their love for each other. A few minutes later, Paul receives another call from Brenner, stating that he and the rescue team will save him at any moment. You come to the tomb and immediately start digging. Meanwhile, more and more sand runs into Paul's coffin.

When the group digs up the wooden box, they realize that it is not Paul's coffin. It's the coffin of Mark White, the man who, according to Brenner, was saved three weeks ago. With the now certain knowledge that he can no longer be saved, Paul accepts his fate and tries to calm himself down in his last few seconds. His coffin fills completely with sand and Paul suffocates.

The last words Paul Conroy hears are Dan Brenner: “I'm sorry Paul! I am so sorry!"

background

The film was shot in Barcelona in 17 days . The inspiration was Alfred Hitchcock's films . According to the director, the budget for the film was under $ 3 million.

Grossing results

Buried played on the opening weekend in the United States approximately 100,000 USD and over the next seven weeks of the cinema screen a total of 1,044,143 USD. The film grossed 3,113,006 USD in Spain, where it was produced, and grossed USD 18,375,438 worldwide.

criticism

This section consists only of a cunning collection of quotes from movie reviews. Instead, a summary of the reception of the film should be provided as continuous text, which can also include striking quotations, see also the explanations in the film format .

The reviews of the film were largely positive. On the Rotten Tomatoes website , the film achieved a rating of 86% based on 145 reviews, on Metacritic a score of 65 based on 29 reviews. The users of the Internet Movie Database rated the film with 7.1 out of 10 points based on over 56,000 votes.

“With a single actor in just one location, director Rodrigo Cortés ('The Contestant') can do what most filmmakers can't even do with bombastic backdrops and hundreds of Hollywood stars: a bitter psycho shocker from Makes no compromises from start to finish. In order to keep the viewer's attention for the entire 93 minutes, Rodrigo Cortés peppered his claustrophobic story with a series of unpredictable twists and turns and moments of tension, some of which seem a little strained, but give the story a continuous thrill. "

- Cinema

“Rodrigo Cortés' horror concept film Buried is a mature, visually compelling finger exercise that was realized for a low budget of $ 3 million. Small deficiencies in the content of the implementation only imperceptibly diminish the enjoyment, as the Spanish director masters this demanding cinematic challenge with chutzpah within the genre conventions, which he does very well . "

- Filmstarts.de

“The few events that are supposed to bring variety as action elements fizzle out or appear illogical. If Paul is in an underground closed space, how does a snake get in there? Since the outside world is literally in the dark, such dramaturgical incoherences encourage speculation about the circumstances of Paul's imprisonment. The imagination of director Rodrigo Cortés was not affected. More than a complex thriller, he had a straightforward shocker in mind that boils down to a single question: will the main character survive? Paul Conroy's character, however, is too vague and template-like to arouse interest. "

- filmrezension.de

“The script by Chris Sparling is serious and sends Paul through the gauntlet of two square meters with changing opponents. It is also thanks to him that the plot remains intense despite the narrow framework and still offers a little comic relief in the form of gallows humor, fits of anger and absurd conversations. The anxiety that the basic situation per se triggers is even intensified by these brief outbursts and provided with a satirical commentary on capitalist society. "

- Critic.de

Web links

Commons : Buried -  collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Buried - Buried alive . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2010 (PDF; test number: 124 246 K).
  2. ↑ Start dates for Buried - Lebend Buried (2010). IMDb , accessed January 26, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Geoff Boucher: The Directors: Rodrigo Cortés builds suspense in 'Buried'. Los Angeles Times , September 12, 2010, accessed January 11, 2011 .
  4. ↑ Interview with Rodrigo Cortés , filmstarts.de
  5. ↑ Buried (2010). Box Office Mojo, accessed January 26, 2011 .
  6. ↑ Buried (2010). Rotten Tomatoes , accessed February 22, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Buried (2010). Metacritic , accessed February 22, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Buried - Buried Alive (2010). IMDb , accessed February 22, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Film review on Cinema.de. Retrieved January 26, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Film review on Filmstarts.de. Retrieved January 26, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Film review on Filmrezension.de. Retrieved January 26, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Film review on Critic.de. Retrieved July 29, 2013 .