Ryan Reynolds one man show - is this movie BURIED already?

Buried; a movie set almost completely within the confined space of a coffin for EIGHTY MINUTES with Ryan Reynolds, a man who has just briefly shown glimpses of how good he can be, as the only actor on screen from start to finish? Who the hell is gonna pay money to see that? Reynolds has told an Australian television network, via The Playlist, that he will be the only actor when production begins on the Indie film in Barcelona this month. Spanish helmer Rodrigo Cortes directs what Reynolds says could be the most"experimental cool movie ever made or god knows what."Buried is said to be a complete one-man show performance from him, the first time the single character gimmick has been used in a motion picture according to his own memory. Of course, this has already been proved false by Russ Fischer of /film who sights the Richard Nixon confessional movie Secret Honor from Robert Altman as just one example of a true one man show. But I didn't know that movie either, so we'll let him off. The article reminded me to check back on Carson Reeves' script review of Chris Sparling's screenplay which I had bookmarked a little while ago but hadn't gotten around to delving into just yet. He has the script ready to download, if your interested in reading it yourself. I think I will read it this afternoon, and I am majorly claustrophobic, so if it's an effective screenplay, I might not make it through to the end. The movie is centered around Paul, an American truck driver in Iraq who is kidnapped by terrorists and left with a cell phone, a candle and a knife as his possessions....

At first Paul has no memory of how he got here. But things start slowly coming back to him. He was driving a truck, delivering food, when there was a loud explosion. Many of his co-workers were killed but somehow he wasn't. He remembers Iraqis coming towards him. But after that? Nothing. Now he's down here, in a grave, in Iraq. Yes, Sparling wrote an international thriller with a 75,000 dollar price tag. (well, maybe 2 million after Reynolds is paid).
Of course, the movie isn't truly a one-man show, because from the sounds of things we are going to see how he was kidnapped during flashbacks and one of the genius gimmicks of the film is that he was a phone with low signal and a low battery as some kind of salvation, and we see his attempts to ring the FBI, his family, etc, to come and rescue him. So there will be other actors voice we will here, so not STRICTLY a one-man show. Not like most of those sequences in Cast Away with Tom Hanksmarooned on a island, all by his lonesome. Even then, I guess he had Wilson. The Buried screenplay is said to have so many ticking clocks that although the movie is only set in one place, your always with the lead character and it's pacing is fast and solid. "top-notch storytelling" Reeves calls it, and he thinks the screenplay is so good that he doesn't know if audiences will be able to handle the terrifying, heart pounding and probably hopeless situation for 80 minutes. Lots of spoilers to be had at Reeves' site, and maybe I will give this one a review myself later, and we can all have a discussion as to whether a movie starring just Ryan Reynolds and a wooden box, actually has a chance of finding an audience.

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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.