I thought it was a reasonably good film. Its strength lies in its conceit and concept of filming a man trapped in a buried coffin and showing nothing else, and it is executed adequately enough, but the material isn't enough to cover 90 minutes, and I think the director knows this, as evidenced by showing the torchlight repeatedly going on and off, chewing off a few seconds each time it happens. I dont think beyond its spine-tingling and chilling premise, that the movies displays a lot of craft- it's mostly just phone calls, I really dont know how much you can do showing only a man stuck ina coffin for 90 mins, and I'm not going to heap praise on Reynolds, who does an alright job but could have easily been replaced by someone relatively unknown and the movie would have still remained just as effective. But for all it's worth I found it to be a good suspense movie, unique in its premise but also slightly restricted because of it.

3.5/5

I dont understand the praise Reynolds is getting. Any decent actor could have pulled this off.

The spectrum of acting on display is as narrow and limited as his physical movements. The only acting we see is him panicking, and most of it is done through tone of voice, and this, pretty much any decent actor can do. Reynolds did a good enough job, but I'm saying this role wasn't hard from an acting standpoint. Being trapped in a confined space like that is another matter.

What is the budget for the movie? I bet most of it went to Reynolds. Discounting his payoff, I think the movie could have easily been made with $50,000 or less.

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Oct 19 2010, 09:40 AM

I disagree. The character isn't subtle. It's pure and raw emotions, namely fear, anger, frustration, and finally resignation. Reynolds was in no way irreplaceable, not even close. It is very easy for me to imagine Joseph Gorden-Levitt playing Paul Conroy. Probably would have done a better job. When you can think of another actor who could have done an equally good or probably better job, I wont be lavishing much praise on the actor who actually got the part. I'm gonna head home now, so I cant think of any other actors.

I'm not so sure about Renner, as he wasn't exactly sympathetic in all the roles I've seen him in, but Ryan Gosling is an easy fit in my mind.

The movie itself isn't so much cost-cutting as it is uncompromising.