30 Minutes or Less is inspired by a true story, though the true story ends tragically different than does this comedic adaptation. Then again, calling this “comedic” is a bit of a falsehood. If we’re talking in truths, 30 Minutes or Less is a frequently unfunny story of idiots that swear and yell as loud as they can in hopes for laughs that never come. Structurely, the film holds up, but as far as entertainment goes, it’s a miss.
The film centers on Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a pizza delivery guy who falls victim to a pair of idiots (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who handcuff a bomb to his neck and tell him he has a limited amount of time to rob a bank before the bomb explodes. The money is needed so Dwayne (McBride) can hire an assassin to kill his father, who won $10 million in the lottery and Dwayne doesn’t want his inheritance wasted.
This is a story that’s more Fargo than anything else, but it remains safe and skirts farther away from the darker comedic stylings of the Coen brothers and instead is just as unfunny as another 2011 comedy, Your Highness. 30 Minutes doesn’t quite go so far as to bore us with mushroom headed alien oracles or sexually aroused minotaurs, but it certainly dismisses the idea of comedic timing with ill-placed and tired jokes that feel as if they were written by hack comedians who think the louder they say the word “fuck” the funnier it is. It’s not.
Nick is played by Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), reteaming with his Zombieland helmer Ruben Fleischer. Eisenberg is probably the only consistent bright spot in the film, showing any kind of measurable acting talent and true sense of panic considering the position his character has been put in. Aziz Ansari, however, as Nick’s friend, Chet, is a nightmare of unaffected line reading. Ansari may as well be at a table reading as far as this film is concerned, the best example being an out of place Netflix joke wedged into the narrative as if he was trying out new material for his standup gig.
Then we come to Danny McBride. If you consider yelling obscenities and insults at the top of your lungs funny, then Danny McBride is your man. I personally found McBride to be the best thing about Pineapple Express and I enjoyed his brief moments in Tropic Thunder, but otherwise I have found him to be a sledgehammer of awful. From Foot Fist Way to Your Highness and now 30 Minutes or Less, McBride creates characters that seem to have been generated from a vortex of stupidity. And not a funny kind of stupid, a stupid kind of stupid. McBride and his co-hort played by Nick Swardson essentially turn into a pair of criminal morons I didn’t find funny as much as they left me straight faced and annoyed.
I will admit, however, the actual bank robbery scene is pretty funny, I liked Michael Pena as Chango, the hired assassin and the film itself is tightly edited down to 83 minutes. I may not have liked 30 Minutes or Less all that much, but it knows when enough is enough, which I can respect.
After Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer was in the running to direct Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but decided he wasn’t ready for something that large. So instead he chose a film that hardly tests his talents. I can respect Fleischer for holding off from biting off more than he could chew, but when it comes to filmmaking or any profession, if you aren’t challenged you’re bored and that’s exactly what I got from 30 Minutes or Less, a lame comedy serving as a step backward in Fleischer’s career. Hopefully he’s gotten the fear of tackling something larger out of his system since he has Gangster Squad next and a strong cast lined up. I’d hate to see Fleischer’s solid start with Zombieland become his crowning achievement.
