'30 Minutes or Less': Short and Funny, Yet Anything but Sweet
★★1/2 Rated R
The new comedy 30 Minutes or Less is directed by Ruben Fleischer of Zombieland fame. As the director of this film, he doesn't bother to bog down moviegoers with a lot of detail, nor is there anything even close to something that could be interpreted as "deep" in this film. Anyone who has seen the preview will have the plot down completely. Yet, despite its predictability, 30 Minutes or Less is entertaining and enjoyable for each of its quick 83 minutes, as long as the audience isn't expecting anything more than a goofy, dark comedy involving a whole cast of knuckleheads.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale) stars as Nick, a pizza-delivery guy in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Nick's life consists mostly of hanging out, watching action flicks, and getting stoned, in addition, of course, to delivering pizzas. He and his best friend Chet, Aziz Ansari (Funny People, TV's Parks and Recreation) have been inseparable since they were kids, up until Nick recently let out that he hooked up with Chet's twin sister a number of years back.
Meanwhile, across town, two other best buds somehow have even less going for them than Nick and Chet. Dwayne, played by Danny McBride (Your Highness, TV's Eastbound and Down) is best friends with Travis, played by Nick Swardson (Grandma's Boy, TV's Reno 911!). They are two fully grown adult males who act worse than any unruly, spoiled children could ever act. Dwayne's father, the Major (played by Fred Ward of Sweet Home Alabama and Corky Romano), is a retired Marine and former lottery winner. Naturally, Dwayne's father cramps his immature style, so he devises a plan with a local lap dancer to have him killed.
The plan goes as follows: Dwayne and Travis lure Nick to an abandoned scrap yard, knock him out, strap to him a vest loaded down with explosives, direct him to rob a bank, and threaten to blow him up if he doesn't follow through with the plan. Nick improvises slightly by including Chet in the bank heist, but manages to do mostly what Dwayne and Travis want. Much of the film involves the antics of Nick and Chet as they steal a car specifically for the heist, buy all of the materials needed to pull it off at the local Family Dollar, and try to fulfill what Nick's captors want, at the same time as Dwayne and Travis carry out a number of antics of their own, while following Nick around town. The plan entails Dwayne and Travis's eventually using the money Nick steals to hire a hit man to off the Major, but naturally the plan has a few hiccups along the way.
It may be all laughs for the audience of 30 Minutes or Less, but the film so closely mirrors a real-life bank robbery scheme that it makes enjoying the film feel unsettling. In 2003, a Pennsylvania pizza-delivery man was killed by a detonated bomb that had been attached to his neck by a group of people set on making $250,000 from a bank robbery in order for them to kill off a wealthy parent. Law enforcement officials concluded that the victim was actually one of the co-conspirators of the heist, but his family members maintain that he was an innocent victim.
After giving such a wonderful performance as Mark Zuckerburg in last year's The Social Network, audiences know what Eisenberg is capable of as an actor, and this lead role is not the type that requires him to show off his acting chops. Ansari does his comedic best to play up the loyal best friend role and adds some well-deserved laughs along the way. McBride, Swardson, and Ward are perfect in their typical roles as a couple of slackers and a hard-nosed Marine veteran. And Michael Peña (The Lincoln Lawyer, Observe and Report) is perfect as hired assassin Chango.
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Sarah's Key
Horrendous tragedy; courageous individuals, engrossing journey; damaged, guilt-ridden soul.
-Lynn S. Johnson from Branford