Review of 30 Minutes or Less (2011) by Michelle M — 27 Jan 2012

Man, what a tremendous disappointment. I had high hopes for it given the cast, concept, and director. I really don't know what went wrong. Sophmore slump, perhaps? Or maybe just decent idea with unfortunate execution. Either way, what could have been a wildly entertaining farce is instead an unfunny mess that lacks cohesion.

Where to begin: well, let's just run down the synopsis: a goofy, slacker criminal wannabe and his equally underachieving friend decide to have the first guy's dad killed so they can reap the benefits of his inheritance. To make this happen, they hire a hit man. To pay the hit man, they decide to kidnap a pizza delivery boy, strap a bomb vest to him, and force him to rob a bank. If he doesn't do so in 9 hours, he's toast.

It's an intriguing set up, but the way it's done sucks. It's not funny (only maybe a couple of jokes work for me, and the trailer was way too spoiler heavy (both on the gags and other things)), it's annoying, obnoxious, ridiculous, and almost all of the characters are unlikeable and poorly developed. The only two characters that actually are half way decent or all that interesting are the two female characters, but they are misused and shortchanged. Go figure.

I like the cast, but they don't do anything new or exciting here. Well, okay, I don't like Nick Swardson, and he failed to win me over here. Danny McBride is a great guy, but his typical schtick (on full display here), grew tiresome long ago. Time to change it up man. Eisenberg's whininess would make him more empathetic if he were better developed, and Ansari is way too over the top and abrasive.

The film at least moves along at a brisk pace and doesn't waste too much time slacking around, but it is only 82 minutes, so it can't afford not to. However, I think the time should have been better spent, and also the film needed to be a tad longer, ya know, for better plot and character development. The damn thing isn't even really tongue in cheek or tries ot go for satire, two hugely missed opportunities.

Since I didn't give it a failing grade, that must mean there are some things I liked. This is true. The opening credits scene is well done, and I loved the fancy, high precision and speedy driving as Eisenberg's pizza boy Nick flies across town (while smoking a joint) trying to make adelivery on time. Fun stuff. Too bad the rest of the film didn't follow suit. I did like the concept, it had some clever ideas, and when the film starts to deal with the craziness of the varioussituations, and miscommunication between the various parties started to the raise the stakes, the film won back some points it lost. However, it was all in vain sicne I didn't really care as much as I should have.

This film is a mess. I'm not sad I saw it (not totally since it didn't waste too much of my time), but it just pains me to see such a promising idea and cast and crew I like (well, some of them), come together only to crash and burn.