30 Minutes or Less | Review
I was a fan of director Ruben Fleischer’s debut film, ‘Zombieland’. It was fun, zany, full of laughs, and featured one of the best celebrity cameos I’ve seen in any film. With Fleischer’s newest film, ’30 Minutes or Less’, the zaniness is increased, but at the cost of fun, and most importantly laughs. And for an R-rated comedy, a lack of laughs is a deal-breaker.
Jesse Eisenberg (‘The Social Network‘) reunites with his ‘Zombieland’ director in ’30 Minutes or Less’, which features him as a pizza boy named Nick. Because his job requires him to deliver pizzas in 30 minutes or less, or else the pizza’s free, Nick has adapted to the situation and become a driving stuntman. Nick runs stop signs and stop lights, makes quick 180-degree turns, and smokes weed on his pizza deliveries. Chet (Aziz Ansari) is Nick’s overly dramatic roommate and best friend. The two get stuck in a terrible situation when Nick ends up having a bomb strapped onto his body by two guys.
The two guys are Dwayne (Danny McBride, from ‘Pineapple Express’) and Travis (Nick Swardson, from ‘Just Go With It‘), two best friends and underachievers who work for Dwayne’s military veteran and rich, lottery-winning father, The Major (Fred Ward). While at a strip club, Dwayne thinks of the genius idea to hire a hitman to kill The Major and inherit his millions. However, Dwayne must first come up with $100,000 to pay the hitman (Michael Pena), and thus Dwayne and Travis order a pizza, to which Nick delivers, and they kidnap Nick, strap a bomb onto him, and force him to rob a bank for the $100,000.
’30 Minutes or Less’ features a storyline that has the potential to deliver on plenty of laughs and outlandish comedic sequences, but it unfortunately never does. The film is wildly uneven and genuine laughs appear rarely. The first 30 minutes of the film set up the premise, but it takes too long to do so, and it’s also boring. Nick and Chet fight and break-up after it’s revealed that Nick slept with Chet’s twin sister, and foul-mouthed jokes that come out of Dwayne’s mouth is just tiresome and unfunny. When the bank robbery actually takes place, this is where the film actually has fun and laughs are given. The gunshot incident at the bank, as well as the “Sandra” joke, two fun bits in the robbery, and probably the best moments from the film.
Unfortunately, the bank robbery occurs in the middle of the film, and it doesn’t last for that long (the film’s only 82 minutes after all). What happens after the robbery is interesting, but it never goes the extra mile to deliver on insanity and laughs. The encounter between the hitman and Nick and Chet is funny, and it’s surprisingly clever of Dwayne to set up such a meeting. But this fun doesn’t last for much longer, and it builds up to a climactic confrontation between all of the major characters that ultimately disappoints.
One of the major problems with ’30 Minutes or Less’, besides its uneven script and lack of laughs, is the fact that the bomb’s timer is set so far in the future – nine hours, in fact. Nick has nine hours to rob a bank. A smaller deadline would have probably improved the film because it’d leave less room for random fights between Nick and Chet about eating burgers and drinking 5-Hour Energy drinks. A smaller deadline would increase the pressure and zaniness.
’30 Minutes or Less’ isn’t all bad, though. The chemistry between Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari (‘Parks and Recreation’) is great, and it’s always fun to see Ansari act his usual fast-paced, comedic self. A major surprise stems from Michael Pena (‘Crash’) because in this film he’s actually pretty funny as the hitman, a character that could have been boring or uninteresting. Pena’s role as the hitman is one of the few bright spots of the film, with the inclusion of the bank robbery sequence.
After a string of hilariously successful R-rated comedies, including ‘Bridesmaids’, ‘The Hangover: Part II’, and ‘Horrible Bosses’, it’s disappointing that ’30 Minutes or Less’ failed to deliver on big laughs, especially since it’s plot has so much potential to be hilarious. And also because of the talent involved in the film, with director Ruben Fleischer and a few great cast-members. ’30 Minutes or Less’ could have been so much more.