Boxed In

BURIED is a movie starring Ryan Reynolds set entirely in a coffin in Iraq. No Really, it is. This is really a review of it.

 

Release date: 29 September 2010

Directed by: Rodrigo Cortés

Starring: Ryan Reynolds

Cert: 15a

Running Time: 95 mins

Click here for the trailer

Given its title, if I told you that BURIED was a movie about a man in a box for an hour and a half you may retort that there are many such films on the internet, and that watching that sort of thing in a cinema would be inappropriate without a long coat and a pocket pack of handkerchiefs. BURIED is in fact a movie about a man trapped in a coffin and not, as its name and synopsis suggest, a dirty film. The only dirt here is the dirt the box is buried in.

 

Why is the man in the box though? Well, Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is a truck driver for an American firm working in Iraq. While going about his daily drivery, he and his coleagues were attacked by some insurgent type fellows, who killed the rest of convoy and knocked out poor Paulie. The film begins at the point where he wakes up with only a cigarette lighter to illuminate his cramped surroundings. That is until a phone rings. Don’t bother asking how he can get coverage underground, you will only end up frustrated by the lack of a logical answer.

 

The first thirtyish minutes of the film consist of wee bit of panicky screaming followed by Paul ringing home to trying to convince anyone who’ll listen of the situation he’s in. Most are rightfully suspicious about his ability to make an international call on a cell phone from underneath Iraq.

 

This thrity-minute spell is the result of a box that the inventor of this piece put himself in. Similar to Paul’s situation, there is very little wiggle room for a story when there is only one character in a coffin. Eventually however an FBI agent believes him and they have a chat that gets the action – if you could call it that – moving. Soon after that call another involving Paul’s captor informs us that he is being held for a ransom of $5 million. The rest of the film involves the terrorist trying to get Paul to be as public as possible and the FBI agent trying to keep hush hush. Paul flip flops between listening to both out of desperation.

 

Your enjoyment of this movie will largely depend on your feelings towards Ryan  “Marmite” Reynolds. If you liked his backchatting in Van Wilder, you will like his comic reposts to the officials on the phone. If you didn’t like his smartass attitude in Wolverine, you may hate the fact that he gets lippy with the people capable of helping him. If you found him attractive in anything he’s been in, you’ll like the fact that, apart from a very short MMS, his is the only face on the screen for the entire film. If you’re girlfriend finds him attractive, you may not.

 

If you don’t like him there won’t be much here for you. Visually, it looks as good as a film set in a box can look. The double standard of how “I’m just doing my job” has different connotations depending on whether you are an American or an Iraqi is questioned. Also the issue of what would you do to feed your family if your country was turned upside down by a foreign power is raised. The story is passable and there are moments of tension, but ultimately the film is just Ryan Reynolds in a box.

 

Baaaad Motha Shut Yo Mouth

BLACK DYNAMITE is spoof of 70s Blaxploitation movies. This is a review of it.

 

Release date: 3 September 2010 (exclusively @ Screen d‘Olier Street)

Directed by: Scott Sanders

Starring: Michael Jai White

Cert: 15A

Running Time: 84 mins

 

In 1971, MGM released a little film called Shaft about an African American private detective who was cool, rightgeous and not too bad in the sack. The era of Blaxploitation was born. Shaft was a major crossover success and spawned a number of woegeous sequels and ridiculous copy cats, with disco, kung-fu, pimping and the ills of drug dealing developing as the main themes. The genre pretty much died at the end of the 70s with The Avenging Disco Godfather.

 

Black Dynamite takes Blaxploitation, holds a mirror up to it and has a damn good chuckle. All of the boxes are ticked: Dodgy soul music. Check. Wooden acting. Check. Awful production values. Check, check, check – rogue boom mics, unsynced dialogue and stray clips of file footage all pop up. All of these mistakes are obviously deliberate and the script is delivered with deadpan briliance.

 

The plot – for what it’s worth – revolves around former CIA agent, Black Dynamite trying to wipe a wave of heroin off the streets and out of the orphanage. Added spice comes from the fact that BD’s brother has been killed by the mob boss responsible for the wave. Don’t worry If this story doesn’t appeal to you because it is abandoned at the end of the second act, as BD learns that there is a boss above the boss, and above that boss is another boss, and so on for the rest of the movie.

 

Michael Jai White stars as the eponimous Black Dynamite and is also the primary writer of the piece. MJW has been plugging away in Hollywood since 1989 without making any big impact. Nobody was writing a part that called for a big black martial artist with impeccible comedic timing, so he wrote one for himself. He fits the role like a glove, as you would imagine. He has done such a good job that there is likely to be a raft of movies featuring big black martial artists with impeccible comedic timing.

 

Black Dynamite will spark of a twinge of nostalgia from anyone who enjoyed the work of the Zuckers on Airplane and The Naked Gun movies, or the Wayans Brothers’ work with Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood and Scary Movie. The parody aspect is clearly central to the comedy, but is offset by gags and observational comedy too.

 

A heavy dosage of farce is also present and when BD and his crew play six degrees of separation with the clues from the case the result is a level of ludicrousity that would make Monty Python jealous.

 

The film is full of cod pathos with BD often delivering heartfelt soliloquies explaining how horrible the world is. You can’t take any of these outbursts of heart seriously though, as they are so overdone and are sandwiched in between healthy doses of racial and sexual political incorrectness.

 

The pacing of the movie is perfect. Scenes last the length of a good sketch but don’t feel separated from each other. It all zips along quite well and knits together perfectly.

 

The movie also gets bonus points for having an almost exclusively black cast without any rappers. There’s nothing wrong with rappers acting, but they too often get roles ahead of trained, talented black actors. This film breaks this trend without drawing attention to it.

 

This is an action packed, rib tickling, motha lovin’, slice of soul, and if that sounds like your bag then you will most definitely dig it.