How do you end a film set in a box? A beginner's guide to the film, Buried.

The totally unrealistic Buried; Blackberrys so don't have 91 minutes' worth of battery.

Now I'm not going to pretend to be a film critic or movie geek. I simply know what I like and dislike.

Last night, I watched the 2010 thriller Buried. If you don't know the plot of the film (which I'll let you off for - I didn't), Ryan Reynolds' character, Paul Conroy finds himself stuck in a coffin, underground in Iraq. Terrorists have put him in there, and he has to phone people for help, against the clock, and try and escape from the box. The thing is (spoilers here), he doesn't. Sand begins flooding the box, and Paul dies.

Which begs my question: what's the right way to end a film like this?

The cornerstone of Buried - or gimmick - is that it's a film set in a box. If Paul escapes, it's not longer a film set in a box, so for art's sake, Paul must die. In the box, naturally. My only problem with that is this: films from The Lion King to Lord of the Rings all take on a journey. Paul doesn't move physically on this journey. He thinks he'll die at the start; he does in the end. That's like saying that you got on the tube at Oxford Street, and the train didn't leave. You knew the train wouldn't move, yet you still stayed in your seat. Is that a journey? And if it is, is it worth making a film about? This film however is a example of a beginning, a middle and an end brilliantly executed:

Take another film set within the confines of four walls, The Truman Show. It's radically different, but same rules apply; Truman is trapped in a world built by a television mogul, and the film revolves around him finding out the truth and trying to escape. Spoilers here. Imagine if Christof, the creator, had killed Truman in the storm, before he reached the end of the world, uttered his catchphrase, and opened the door into the outside world? That would have thoroughly changed my opinion of the film.

I feel slightly led-on by Buried duo, director Rodrigo Cortés and writer Chris Sparling. There's only so much rollercoaster ride you can pack into a coffin (metaphorically speaking of course), and it's really not that much, but the ending doesn't have The Truman Show's satisfying conclusion. It's safe to say I was disappointed with Buried. I'd liken it to a goalless cup final, minus the extra time and penalty shoot-out; 90 minutes of nothing special, followed by a crushing blow of disappointment. I'm not sure what I wanted to happen to Paul Conroy but it wasn't sand-asphyxiation, that's for sure.