8. Ryan Reynolds Buried (2010)
Let me get this right out of the way: I am not a Ryan Reynolds fan. If you ask me, for the most part, hes successful due to the fact that hes relatively handsome, he has a great body, and he can act a bit. Basically, I sort of view him as the male equivalent of Megan Fox. Thats why going into Buried, I almost could not be bothered. However, as Id worked with the Cinematographer of this particular movie during a work experience placement at University, I couldnt really resist. And Im unashamedly glad I didnt. In Buried, Reynolds plays an American truck driver working in Iraq who is kidnapped, placed in a crude coffin and buried in a shallow grave in the middle of the desert by local insurgents. Usually, I find Reynolds to be obnoxiously smug its a trait he seems to carry with him through almost every role Ive seen him in but here, theres no time for crass humour, no time for cute comedy. Reynolds spends this entire movie lying in one place and for once, is actually forced to - literally - act himself out of a paper bag. The results are quite remarkable. Im not saying Buried is the greatest movie ever made of course, but for what it is, for who its only on-screen character is, its pretty damn astounding. Reynolds is so raw, so impassioned to secure his own survival, and even though were literally in one location for almost the entire runtime, he manages to grab and hold the attention through one heart-pounding sequence to the next. This, I thought to myself, is where my opinion of Ryan Reynolds shifts. And then he did Green Lantern *sigh*