2 stars (out of four)
In 30 Minutes or Less, a new comedy from director Ruben Fleischer, two would-be criminals strap a bomb to a stranger’s chest and force him to rob a bank under the threat of detonation, a premise that places the film in the company of a recent wave of action comedies that have been popular in the last few years.
In films such as Pineapple Express and this one (both of which feature actor Danny McBride) the best jokes stem from watching everyday incompetent shmoes realize that life is not like what they have been led to believe from their countless viewings of Lethal Weapon. This is amusing territory to be sure but when 30 Minutes or Less runs out of clever gags, it leans too heavily on its guns and explosives for laughs, a none-too-subtle way to cover for a lack of good material.
The victim of the aforementioned scheme is Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a pizza delivery boy whose employer cruelly promises customers a free pizza if their order does not arrive in the titular time frame. Nick has a falling out with his childhood friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) over his interest in Chet’s sister Katie (Dilshad Valsaria), a plot device necessary to push the two apart before the forthcoming bomb situation draws them back together.
The architects of the deadly and poorly thought out plan are Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson) who want to off Dwayne’s father (Fred Ward), a ex-Marine hardass with a few million dollars in lottery winnings. Once his old man is out of the way, Dwayne can use his inheritance money to fund his dream business venture: a whorehouse that fronts as a tanning salon. First, however, the pair needs a hundred thousand bucks to hire a hit man (Michael Peña) who comes recommended by a stripper (Bianca Kajlich) Dwayne spills his guts to during a lap dance.
Eisenberg, fresh off his Oscar nod for The Social Network (there is a winking reference to Facebook in this film), reteams with his Zombieland director though he isn’t quite right for the role. There is too much of the nastiness from his take on Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg here and not enough of the neurosis from his Zombieland character. He is angry and spiteful when he should be bumbling and anxious.
The movie also features performances from a few comedic actors who are on the verge of becoming household names. The best of these is Aziz Ansari, a popular stand-up comic and TV actor who is about one good role away from becoming a star. There is something oddly likable about Ansari’s comedic persona; his hyper energy is fueled by the sort of faux-machismo that comes from watching too many action movies and rap videos (fitting that he should recently appear in a rap video). He poses as a tough guy but the act is quickly broken at the slightest sign of danger and he turns out to be as timid as any of us.
McBride and Swardson are more of a mixed bag. Their talents mainly lie in mining the lowest depths of privileged degenerates, which, I suppose, they are very good at though they are not always fun to watch. This is particularly the case when the script calls on them to deliver some pretty offensive one-liners. (The film is not shy about its sexist dismissal of its female characters and features a handful of racist comments directed towards Indians.) Coming from the mouths of such mean, unlikable characters, these lines are ugly rather than funny.
Entirely too much time is spent on this pair, especially in the opening scenes as the film needlessly depicts the two criminals devising their scheme. The movie might have taken a cue from the action movies it constantly references and launched right into the bomb and bank heist plot. Nick and Chet’s amateur robbery is great fun but gets limited to only a few scenes when it should form the basis of all the film’s jokes.
Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland was a surprisingly smart and often very funny movie but here he places too much comedic faith in the wrong places. I appreciate the film’s economic running time but when a movie is this short there should be no wasted time, no extraneous scenes. Instead, 30 Minutes or Less squanders its 83 minutes as though as though unaware its main character could explode at any moment.
- Steve Avigliano, 8/14/11
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