30 Minutes or Less

30 Minutes or Less is one short film, but snappier than a angry crocodile. The story's ludicrous, but sustains our suspension of disbelief. An immature man (Dany McBride), living under a strict, wealthy father, plots his assassination. Along with his not-as-stupid-but-still-stupid best friend (Nick Swardson), they strap a bomb to a pizza delivery guy (Jesse Eisenberg), and force him to rob a bank, so they can pay for a hit-man to bump off McBride's father. McBride and Swardson's stupidity match their unquestionable plans. The bank robbery's not exaggerated or understated thanks to the directing skills of Ruben Fleischer (known for Zombieland) and the main man Jesse Eisenberg. Now comfortable in the comedy field, Eisenberg naturally juggles humour with nerves. 30 Minutes or Less is chock-full of humour, action and energetic dialogue, all the while keeping character's traits. 30MoL comes with a weakness though: Danny McBride. He manages to uphold the 'biggest moron' and 'biggest typecast' awards, producing the fewest laughs. Aziz Ansari however, picks up the award for the most. He's the yin to Eisenberg's yang, joining Eisenberg on the nightmare of all days.

While the premise of this film leaves much room for hilarity, as shown by the promising trailer, it was unable to capitalize on this due to what feels like a lackluster effort on the part of the writers. There are many tell-tale indications of this, such as in the inconsistency of the characters. Palpable tension is generated between characters without any warning, and then it is forgotten by the next scene.

Another glaring issue was the pacing of the story. If you saw the trailer, you would think it centered around this bank robbery by two normal guys. However, this is only one small piece of the movie. The opening was simultaneously slow and somewhat insufficient, then everything sped up tremendously, and then the latter half of the film was dragged out to fill up the remaining time needed for the movie to be taken seriously.

In all, I would rate this film a 6.5/10 since it was still entertaining and done by clearly talented actors. However, note that this is far from their best work, probably because the actors were confused about who their characters were.

The film's plot is just how it is presented, so I will just focus on where the film fell short despite all the ingredients for success.

I saw the trailer for this and was hoping for a good, not great, summer comedy. The quality of writing in this genre can be difficult to predict based on trailers because we see two minutes of footage trying to bring us to the theater, which often leaves the best jokes spoiled before the first minute. The main reason I chose to watch 30 Minutes or Less was because of Jesse Eisenburg. Coming off of his solid performance in The Social Network and his previous roles in comedy, surely he is in a position to wait for a good script.

There is a good cast here of actors who have had supporting roles or just a brief scene in big comedies over the past few years (Aziz Ansari and Nick Swardson in particular), who outside the comedy circuit aren't recognizable names yet. Danny McBride is getting perfect at playing this kind of character (the drug dealer in Observe and Report comes to mind) who projects the pure alpha male ego and aggression of someone of authority - all while misusing every quote, saying and fact considered to be common knowledge.

I just erased a long analysis of my gripes, which aren't necessary to explain in such detail. The script was just flawed for comedy in my eyes and no one could save it. Mainly, the movie went back and forth between crazy but theoretically possible and not trying at all to seem believable. The characters are sometimes exaggerated kinds of people that exist and those who cannot, and with whom no one could relate to. Good comedies require more than lots of good jokes and actors. It all must come together in some way that works on the level presented, because context is what humor plays off. The best jokes of the film could be put essentially anywhere in any film and work the same.

The second feature film from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer (but not the same film's writers) is ostensibly an "original" comedy, but borrows heavily from the true case of a pizza delivery guy who got kidnapped by two crooks, strapped with a bomb and forced to go and rob a bank. In his case it was not a comedy at all, and the guy did die (the bomb was also strapped to his head, kind of a different and more f***ed-up scenario this film wouldn't touch even if it could try). But for Fleischer and company, who needs to make it all dramatic? Or even make much sense in terms of plot?

The movie carries its moments, mostly through improvisation (or what would appear to be just going off on small tangents by actors like Danny McBride and Jesse Eisenberg, the latter the pizza guy who gets the bomb strapped to him by McBride and his co-hort). And there were even those few moments where I found myself laughing hard at the actors' repore, especially when Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari get into a good groove riffing off each other about, say, their foolishness in messing each other's respective ex-girlfriends and/or sisters. And the actual bank robbery carries some real thrills (if capped by a mediocre car chase aided by some weak 80's car-chase parody).

Ultimately I couldn't get over how needlessly complicated the plot was in McBride's plot to knock off his father, played by Fred Ward (who actually steals his scenes completely as a crazed ex-Major who won the lottery), as a plot to make millions comes down to a pizza delivery boy. Perhaps if Elmore Leonard was brought in for a rewrite it could've been made brilliant.

As it stands it's a stupid story perked up by a stupid series of comic-suspense set-pieces as Eisenberg and Anzari prepare for the robbery. For some the crazy hijinks will be enough. For me, it could have done a lot more, despite the principal cast members doing their best to bring it up to something better.

30 Minutes or Less would go on TV the night, so I decided to watch the movie, but without any expectations, and I ended up liking the film, I thought a lot of fun, the cast is good, Jesse Eisenberg is well, Danny McBride good and funny, Aziz Ansaria this very well, I rather laugh with him, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña, Fred Ward and etc, the script is weak, more has really funny moments, and some fun dialogues, even the majority being uninteresting, the direction of the film is weak and the pace is moderate, I was not bored, most believe it will be very, 30 Minutes or Less is fun, have a good time, plus has a weak script and direction without any inspiration. Note 7.0