This Ryan Reynolds Thriller Is Tense Even Though He’s the Only Actor on Screen

Ryan Reynolds is one of the few movie stars left in the modern cinema landscape – he’s also an actor that immediately conjures up a very specific aura and acting style for people. From his days headlining Van Wilder, Reynolds embraced a snarky attitude and the power of endless quips. That only got exacerbated once Deadpool turned into a pop culture phenomenon, which means that Reynolds is now headlining countless movies where he plays characters constantly making pop culture references with a wry attitude. From Free Guy to IF to The Hitman’s Bodyguard among others, Reynolds has carved out a niche playing a very specific kind of cinematic character.

Still, those who’ve followed the deepest corners of his filmography know that Ryan Reynolds sometimes subverts his image – albeit mostly in pre-Deadpool indie films. 2009’s Adventureland saw him playing someone a bit more weary and discernibly realistic – ditto for him playing opposite Ben Mendelsohn in Mississippi Grind. However, the undisputed champion of unexpected star vehicles for Reynolds has to be his 2010 film Buried. It’s an incredibly tense feature that’s not at all punctuated by the kind of juvenile humor usually anchoring a Reynolds film… he’s also the only person we ever see onscreen.

What is Buried About?

From screenwriter Chris Sparling and director Rodrigo Cortés, Buried begins with Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) awakening in a coffin. He’s only got a handful of items that can illuminate his claustrophobic confines, while a Blackberry phone allows him limited communication with the outside world. The stakes quickly become clear for Conroy: he’s being held for a $5 million ransom that must be paid or he’ll suffocate to death in the coffin. Conroy communicates with a Hostage Working Group employee while also grappling with the lingering consequences of his workplace actions before he was trapped in this coffin.

Though Reynolds secured a massive box office hit with The Proposal in June 2009, just a year earlier, Buried didn’t make much of an impact at the domestic box office. In North America, Buried only grossed a few thousand dollars more than $1 million – but it did considerably better in international markets. Between this box office failure and Reynolds shifting gears to more conventional acting ambitions in the years since, Buried has been largely forgotten. That’s a shame because this is a solidly constructed thriller benefiting greatly from the creative conviction of Cortés and Sparling.

[RELATED: 3 Ryan Reynolds Movies That Prove He’s More Than Just Deadpool]

Both men commit to creating a movie taking place in a coffin much like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope occupied just a single room for its entire runtime. The result is an appropriately suffocating feature where you can constantly feel how cramped Conroy is. The pressure of him trying to save his life while confined to his back comes through the screen thanks to Buried’s refusal to cut to outside the coffin. There is no escape for Conroy so the viewer doesn’t get to evade the coffin prison either. It’s a bold move that pays off tremendously in just how gripping this movie is.

Ryan Reynolds Makes Buried Work

Ryan Reynolds has always exuded big “look at me!” energy in his performances, particularly in turns molded by the success of Deadpool. There’s a franticness to his comedy as he crams in as many quips as humanely possible or tries to keep dry self-deprecating lines going for as long as possible. Those qualities are fascinatingly translated into his Buried performance. Here, those elements manifest communicating Conroy’s urgency in trying to get out of this coffin.

Instead of pleading with the audience to laugh at his jokes, Reynolds exudes a tangibly distraught aura capturing Conroy’s fractured psyche. It’s a fascinating overhauling of a typical Ryan Reynolds performance into a new direction. Casting a ‘comedy guy’ for this thriller role could’ve sunk Buried; instead, this unorthodox Ryan Reynolds performance suggested how much range Reynolds had as a performer, when he’s got a creative director and story to work with.

Plus, keeping Reynolds confined to just a coffin limits some of the more irksome maximalist physical acting that weighs down his weaker comedic performances. In trying to conjure up a good ticking-clock thriller in the vein of Phone Booth, Buried figures out a way to exploit the best parts of Reynolds while keeping his more troublesome impulses in check. In the process, Ryan Reynolds becomes a secret ingredient making Buried so compelling. If you think you’ve seen it all from this Deadpool leading man, just check out Buried and see what he’s capable of.

Buried is now streaming on Tubi.