Tries hard, but...

...still a basically one-dimensional actor. I just saw Buried and, while there is no denying he had some effectively intense moments, there was nothing underneath. He just had canned, off-the-shelf emotional responses: This is him being scared, this is him being angry, this is him being sad, etc. When a single actor is the sole focus of an entire movie, that actor had better have the ability to show multiple layers and unparalleled depth. There's a bit of a problem when the three best performances in the film (Robert Paterson, Stephen Tobolowsky, José Luis García Pérez) were just voices on the phone. I can only imagine the fireworks if a better actor had played the lead role.