Review of 30 Minutes or Less (2011) by Ian B — 24 Jun 2012

"30 Minutes or Less" offers a fair slice of fun.

Films about twenty-something slackers tend to be the type of movies aimed squarely at my demographic. That doesn't mean they're always something I enjoy, but the goal of these types of films is to get people like me to empathize with the characters because we're similar in certain ways.

Actors like Michael Cera and Jessie Eisenberg are the types of guys I'm supposed to identify with in stories like this, and often times it works. So, even though it was sure to be a fairly low scoring film at the box office, I decided to see "30 Minutes or Less" this weekend, a new addition to the "slacker in peril" genre. The film was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who directed "Zombieland," so my hopes were pretty high. The results, while certainly not bad, weren't exactly what I hoped for either.

Our total average hero for this outing is Nick (Jessie Eisenberg), a pizza delivery boy whose employer promises that the pizza will arrive in thirty minutes or less, or the meal is free. Naturally, Nick loses a lot of his money this way, having to cover for free pizzas out of his salary, due mostly to people exploiting the system. His best friend, Chet (Aziz Ansari), is a teacher trying to encourage Nick to move on with his life.

Meanwhile, Dwayne (Danny McBride) is the son of a retired military man who won a $10 million dollar lottery prize. His father constantly berates and verbally abuses him, and spends his dwindling fortune frivolously. Dwayne, together with his best friend Travis (Nick Swardson,) plots to kill his father.

In order to hire the hitman, however, he needs $100,000 dollars. So Dwayne and Travis call a pizza boy, who turns out to be Nick, kidnap him, strap a bomb to him, and tell him he has ten hours to get the money before the bomb explodes. Dwayne suggests robbing a bank as the easiest way to get it. Left with no other choice, Nick sets off to try and rob a bank. You know the rest. Hijinks ensue...some of the time.

Now, while "30 Minutes or Less" is very much an uneven film, there were several times when it was quite humorous. I laughed out loud on multiple occasions, and when the film was funny, it tended to be quite funny. But when it wasn't, it tended the drag. The film is only about 80 minutes long, and 20 of those minutes were set-up, and frankly, it just wasn't interesting. None of the characters were all that compelling. They certainly didn't have the charm of the quartet from "Zombieland.".

Both of the male duos lacked chemistry, and frankly that's kind of a big problem. Jessie Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari, who are both quite comically talented, just didn't gel together in this film. It doesn't help that they only have one brief scene before they have a huge fight and falling out, an event usually saved for the third act of a film. Danny McBride and Nick Swardson also suffer from a lack of chemistry, with Swardson playing the socially dimwitted sidekick who McBride is always verbally berating.

The problem in "30 Minutes or Less" clearly comes down to the writing. Michael Diliberti, who wrote the film, has literally no other writing credit to his name, and I think that shows. For the most part, when the actors in this film shine, it tends to be in spite of the script rather than because of it, which is a shame.

In the end, though that's where all the problems lie from the badly paced beginning, to the lack of characterization or charm with the leads to the hastily wrapped up ending, which left several plot threads loose. It's unfortunate that Ruben Fleischer didn't have the writing team from "Zombieland" as well, because clearly they worked better together than he did with Diliberti.

"30 Minutes or Less" is not a terrible film. It doesn't even totally fail at being a comedy. It does come off as a fairly sloppy first attempt, though. There is humor to be found in this film, but not nearly as often as it should be. Both the premise and actors were underutilized, in my opinion. If this movie comes on cable, or when it comes to Netflix if you're already paying for it, I'd say it's worth that level of commitment, but certainly not full theater ticket price. There are better things you could spend your money on.

Grade: B-.

Entertainment Value: 7.