Year: 2011
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writers: Michael Diliberti
Region of Origin: U.S.
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Rating: R
Digital, 35mm, Color, 83 mins
Synopsis: Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else… (Source)
30 Minutes Or Less, as its name would suggest, is a lot like bad pizza. When it’s free, hey, it isn’t too bad, but when you’ve got to pay for it, well, what was I thinking? Thrown together under a random, inane premise, the movie proves pretty inconsistent, but is saved from being a total letdown by pacing its best punchlines and a couple strong performances by Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride.
The movie revolves around Nick, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who’s a deadbeat pizza boy with little ambition. His best friend and roommate Chet, played by Aziz Ansari, is a school teacher, and also has a sister that Nick is secretly in love with. During a delivery, Nick is kidnapped by slacker lowlifes Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), who strap a bomb to Nick’s chest and demand he rob a bank, with the money to be used to fund a personal hit on Dwayne’s dad for his fortune. Sounds crazy, right? Well, granted it results in some pretty outrageous scenarios, but really the plot is an afterthought, used simply to frame absurd moments with some semblance of logical progression. This comedy is all about its actors, with some mixed results.
Frankly, the two reasons this movie doesn’t fade into relative obscurity or the bottomless pit of infamously terrible comedies are Ansari and McBride. Hands down, these two are responsible for the funniest moments and lines in the movie, and thankfully they both play huge roles. Ansari’s wide-eyed, intense and sarcastic delivery, combined with some really self-effacing and racially confrontational writing, make his scenes with Eisenberg not only bearable, but some are absolutely hilarious. Then there’s McBride, as shameless and committed as ever. As Dwayne, he embodies a lot of what seem to be stereotypically negative “American” attributes: entitlement, self-interest and a wholly unreasonable infatuation with mullets to name a few. Dwayne’s a pitiful, naive degenarate, and McBride really gives the character a lot of punch, particularly when things take a turn for the worse. His chemistry with Nick Swardson’s Travis is pretty spot-on too, together creating a much more balanced and formidable duo than Eisenberg and Ansari, who have to rely too much on Ansari to make their scenes work.
My biggest problem with the movie is, well, there’s no real point to it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy inane, senseless and sophomoric humor as much as the next guy, but when it comes to a movie, it needs to have something more. A social insight, satire or some semi-redemptive theme to make the whole thing worth it, yet 30 Minutes or Less lacks too much of that. Sure, there are a couple character realizations, with Eisenberg and McBride’s characters transforming a bit, but it all just falls a bit flat. There wasn’t much to say about it once the credits rolled, and that falls at the feet of director Ruben Fleischer. I think he intended for the movie to be a much darker comedy than it is and it does toe the black comedy line, but never fully goes for it, usually hedging back into easy, crude gags. The technique and mechanics are there, I’m just left wanting more.
It’s this kind of thing that drives me nuts, the mixed-bag type of experience where it’s really hard to decide whether you like what you just watched. I’d much rather prefer something more polarizing, as ambivalence really does nothing but hurt the product, and such is the case with 30 Minutes or Less. It’s both really funny and totally forgettable, making it worth a watch despite its eventual insignificance. Enjoy yourself, but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
Crome Rating: 3/5
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