I had hopes that with the talent of the two leads and the good buzz on director Ruben Fleischer's previous film, "Zombieland," "30 Minutes or Less" would be more than it eventually ended up being, which is an occasionally funny, more often stupid, diversion.
It's a decent way to spend 90 minutes if you have nothing else to do, but it doesn't exactly scream "See me in the theater!"
The story is pretty simple. Jesse Eisenberg Nick offers pizzas for a living, each traffic violation committed in the book to get your feet to your destination on time, even when the situation is clearly miles away. Otherwise, this is your payment, and one has to imagine that your salary is not very high.
Nick is a film version of the prototypical slacker cool. He has a job with no future, not in the intelligence department and seemingly no ambition (and even less of a moral compass), however, manages to be charming enough to have slept with two of his beautiful sister best friend (a potential gags that barely touches) is really going somewhere.
Meanwhile, his long more responsible (but equally irresponsible) best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari, here reduced to a parody of a screaming human being) is a local school teacher and has been limited almost like a future as Nick, Not to mention an equally poor decision-making.
At the same time, two complete idiots (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as Dwayne and Travis) hatch an elaborate (and completely inane) plan to kill Dwayne Marine Corps vet father, Major (Fred Ward) to inherit the remaining 10 million dollar lottery win.
Nick is a film version of the prototypical slacker cool. He has a job with no future, not in the intelligence department and seemingly no ambition (and even less of a moral compass), however, manages to be charming enough to have slept with two of his beautiful sister best friend (a potential gags that barely touches) is really going somewhere.
Meanwhile, his long more responsible (but equally irresponsible) best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari, here reduced to a parody of a screaming human being) is a local school teacher and has been limited almost like a future as Nick, Not to mention an equally poor decision-making.
At the same time, two complete idiots (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as Dwayne and Travis) hatch an elaborate (and completely inane) plan to kill Dwayne Marine Corps vet father, Major (Fred Ward) to inherit the remaining 10 million dollar lottery win.
This "plan" involves committing several smaller crimes, including strapping a bomb to Nick's chest to force him to rob a bank so Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber can get enough money to pay a hit man. See where this is going?
McBride, often hysterical in HBO's "Eastbound and Down," has become typecast and desperately needs to break out of this character. His variations on a theme of a crude, not-so-bright bull in a China shop is getting stale -- the effect of which in this film is the constant urge to reach through the screen and punch him in the mouth.
It didn't occur to me to do the math, but there may have been more crimes committed per minute in this film than in any since 1980's "The Blues Brothers," and some of them are indeed funny. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but go with it. Mostly, however, they're just stupid, not to mention poorly paced and frantically acted.
What it boils down to is, "30 Minutes or Less" is loaded with stupid characters, crude jokes (some funny, some not so much), one pretty good car chase, some very good actors in wasted, underwritten roles and a massive requirement of its audience to suspend disbelief.
McBride, often hysterical in HBO's "Eastbound and Down," has become typecast and desperately needs to break out of this character. His variations on a theme of a crude, not-so-bright bull in a China shop is getting stale -- the effect of which in this film is the constant urge to reach through the screen and punch him in the mouth.
It didn't occur to me to do the math, but there may have been more crimes committed per minute in this film than in any since 1980's "The Blues Brothers," and some of them are indeed funny. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but go with it. Mostly, however, they're just stupid, not to mention poorly paced and frantically acted.
What it boils down to is, "30 Minutes or Less" is loaded with stupid characters, crude jokes (some funny, some not so much), one pretty good car chase, some very good actors in wasted, underwritten roles and a massive requirement of its audience to suspend disbelief.
Don't get me wrong. I love stupid humor, if it's stupid like a fox (get it?). I also don't have anything against mindless comedies, as long as they're funny. The thing is, if they're really funny, they're not really mindless. Basically, "30 Minutes or Less" isn't truly bad enough to be bad, but it's not really very good, either.
