Thinking inside the box

Thriller directors are compared favorably to Hitchcock as frequently and erroneously as exotic meats are proclaimed to taste like chicken. However, anyone who delights in either repast, culinary or cinematic, can tell you that rabbit is nothing like bird nor NIGHT OF THE LEPUS equal to THE BIRDS. That said, exceptions exist and Rodrigo Cortes earns his linkage to Sir Alfred with his claustrophobic feature, BURIED, the best film of 2010 to receive absolutely no award attention. Ask me, and it should have taken INCEPTION‘s place as a Best Picture nomination. The movie was shot for a fraction of the budget with a fraction of the exposition, yet ten times more suspense and, frankly, far more substantial, provocative content in the (shared) guise of commercial entertainment.

Starring Ryan Reynolds, in a role that has convinced me, finally, that he is actually an actor not just a ridiculously buff goofball with dramatic ambitions, BURIED offers pointed critiques of American foreign policy and, more damningly, American corporate practices… though audiences can easily overlook these jabs by simply remaining spooked, an easy feat given Cortes’ direction that keeps us within the confines of both a coffin and real time. How and why our nominal hero finds himself trapped is slowly revealed thanks to Chris Sparling‘s tight script and Cortes’ innovative camera-work that, seemingly, never repeats itself and always offers new angles on the developing crisis. Additionally and wisely, the director served as his own editor, revealing how cleanly and calculatedly he must have plotted the shoot. Rodrigo Cortes’ work, completed under limited budget and over just seventeen production days, reveals an immense talent, a filmmaker with an intellectually rigorous approach to inherently visceral storytelling that is the hallmark of, yes, Hitchcock. BURIED is the PSYCHO of the Gulf War generation.