I recently saw Buried and though I immediately told everyone to see the film – and will continue to do so – there are a couple things that bothered me after I saw it. The movie has some interesting tricks to keep the viewer engaged, including building different coffins with varied dimensions to get interesting angles for filming and a clever way of lighting different portions of the film so the viewer feels like they are changing scenes. Plus, the story line is much more politically nuanced than expected and Ryan Reynold’s proves he actually is a good actor.
But, some of those things that happen in that coffin seem so implausible that I just had to point them out. Go see the movie, then come back to this post and let me know what you think. (Translation: Spoilers ahead.)
If you’re buried underground, how are you getting reception!?
In the movie, the protagonist Paul Conroy, is buried with a cell phone because his captors want to keep communication with him. I understand that he’s not that deep underground because he can still hear things going on around him, BUT I just step a few feet down on the stairs subway and I can’t send a text to save my life. That’s not even on the most concrete-reinforced spots underground. Hell, I can’t even get reception in some areas of Manhattan. What service provider does he have that he gets crystal clear reception (unless when it’s occasionally cutting out)? And, he can receive and send video?
Couldn’t he just climb out?
Now, I’m not going to tell you if he did eventually get out of the coffin, but why didn’t he just think about climbing out? Reynolds is 6’2 and a solid looking guy. In the movie, he’s not really injured. According to this article on Today I Found Out Online, you could manage to crawl out if you allowed some of the dirt to came in. Plus we know the sand wasn’t that firmly packed because he was just buried and another creature that was in there with him was able to get out of the coffin quickly with no problems of getting stuck. With at least two feet of sand in the coffin with you, the surface would only be a few feet away and with all that adrenalin, you could think about climbing out.
Doesn’t fire take up a lot of oxygen?
He lights a fire inside the coffin in a pretty cool action sequence that involved very little motion. Seeing that he panicked and yelled quite a bit, his oxygen level would be pretty much near zero. I guess it happened in the second half of the movie, but still, I can’t believe he could still breathe.
TMZ didn’t try to call?
As soon as I figured out my cell phone number, I would have had texted that to everyone I knew and told them to alert the news. I would have told the media that the government and the company I was working for wasn’t doing anything to help me and at least took down those people who weren’t doing their job. I’m just saying: Call TMZ or Wikileaks. They can find anything on anyone.