Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up to find that he’s been buried alive. Having been contracted as a truck driver in Iraq, Paul has no idea how he got there and must act fast, before he runs out of oxygen.

Helpfully supplied with a Zippo lighter, his own anxiety medication (don’t think a few pills are going to quite cut it somehow) and a mystery BlackBerry (which can certainly withstand more sand than ours), Paul frantically tries to get hold of the outside world and out of this ultimate nightmare.

90 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a box doesn’t sound like the most dynamic premise for a film but Chris Sparling’s enthralling script ensures that the pace never falters. Even more impressive are the genius camera shots, which don’t allow viewers to get bored of what has got to be one of the movie world’s smallest sets.

Trapped in the coffin alongside him, the audience at once feel Paul’s claustrophobia. As he wakes up, the scene is black. There’s heavy breathing, coughing and increasingly frantic knocking. Your worst nightmare suddenly becomes reality as you imagine the scene through your own eyes and you're sat there, helplessly waiting for Paul to find that damn lighter so you can see what the hell is going on. It’s a pretty powerful opening for what is essentially a blank screen.

The tension doesn’t stop there either. While our inner nag prayed for Paul to leave the lighter alone almost immediately, in fear of it stealing all his oxygen, we were kept - quite literally - on the edge of our seats through Paul’s various phone conversations (he has signal underground, just accept it) - with everyone from loved ones to his work’s personnel department - and the general emotional roller-coaster that Buried ultimately is.

There’s tension and suspense in bucket-loads, along with sadder moments of desperation and more than one instance of pure terror, including what has got to be the most confined action scene ever. But there are also a few darkly comic moments too, giving viewers a chance to relax and giggle over everyone’s empathetic reactions - before Paul’s infectious anxiety kicks in again, that is.

For a film that relies greatly on Reynolds performance (which is startlingly good), Buried is utterly captivating and so long as you don’t dwell on the film’s implausibilities, you’ll be sucked underground with Paul for the whole 90 minutes.