Fascinating thriller with the simplest mise en scène possible - a single set and one visible actor trapped in a coffin for the duration of the movie. (If low production-values movies like this could be made on a regular basis, the skyrocketing costs of American film production would plummet. And one suspects that this is why they are being made in the wake of spectacularly successful cheapies like The Blair Witch Project.)
Ryan REYNOLDS offers a noteworthy performance that holds our attention throughout - he has to, since this is a one-man show which would otherwise fall disastrously flat for its 90 minute length. The pointed criticism of the War on Terror is well made as a conflict designed to enrich the already wealthy - much like the First World War was - REYNOLDS' character simply being a small, lower-class cog in a big wheel going to Iraq for the work he could not get at home in the US.
The director (Rodrigo Cortés) and writer (Chris Sparling) extract as much value as possible from the dramatic staging-limitations they have set themselves. They maintain a consistent level of suspense - with the sole exception of an out-of-the-blue snake entering the coffin that was not setup for earlier when we are clearly told that REYNOLDS is completely sealed in. His conversations on the cellphone left with him slowly reveal what has happened and why. Along with the fact that, ultimately, he has been left to die not only by his terrorist captors but by his employers and his government - the fate of all who enter a war zone for no benefit to themselves. His characterization of a man waiting to die makes this is as good as Tunnel Rats and Miracle Mile in its depiction of the essentially internecine and mercantilist nature of modern warfare.
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