30 MINUTES OR LESS Review: Short, Absurd But Laugh Out Loud Funny

Supposedly based on the true story of Brian Wells, who attempted to stage a robbery with a home-made collar bomb strapped to himself, writer Michael Diliberti and Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer have concocted a story of equal, if not greater, absurdity.

30 Minutes or Less

rating: 3

Supposedly based on the true story of Brian Wells, who attempted to stage a robbery with a home-made collar bomb strapped to himself, writer Michael Diliberti and Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer have concocted a story of equal, if not greater, absurdity. In fact after the 83 minute whiz-bang running time you might just sit there and wonder if you hadn€™t just made up the whole thing yourself. Centred around pizza delivery guy Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), whose delivery style revolves around driving as maniacally as possible in order to stay within the promised 30 minutes or less, and his somewhat more successful high school teacher best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari), the film creates a smorgasbord of boneheads, losers, criminals, ineptitude, thievery and slapstick violence. Chief among the idiots on display is Dwayne (a playing to type Danny McBride), whose strained to breaking point relationship with his wealthy but hard-ass father €˜The Major€™ (Fred Ward), causes him to take the advice of a local lap dancer (Bianca Kajlich) and plan on hiring a hitman. Especially as The Major seems intent on spending most of his wealth as quickly as possible. 30 Minutes or Less So, working with his even more intellectually challenged best friend Travis (Nick Swardson) the contract is made. But there€™s a slight problem, coming up with the $100,000 payment. Naturally wanting to avoid first hand criminality Dwayne figures on getting some fool to do the money raising instead. So enters Nick, whose innocent pizza run ends up with him wearing a bomb vest and the demented order to get the 100 grand in 10 hours, or go boom. Playing against a rocky relationship between Nick and Chet, after Nick confesses to sleeping with Chet€™s twin sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), their Point Break channelling and idiotically adrenaline filled bank robbery actually manages to mend some cracks. There may be a demented plot flying past the screen but really it€™s the friendships that count. Even the bad guys are best buds, (though after a while you do start wanting Swardson€™s Travis to smack his overbearing pal in the kisser). The hitman Chango is of course a man of limited acquaintance and as played by Michael Pena he practically steals the show, eschewing stereotypical gangsterdom and replacing it with a nice line in eccentric determination to see the job through. In fact it€™s the sidekicks that really give the film its ludicrous laughs. Swardson continues his creation of characters of fuckwit genius €“ he just has to look slightly bemused to steal an entire scene, and Ansari as the supposedly straightlaced Chet is a perfect model of barely suppressed joy at breaking out of his normal 9 to 5, and underplayed sarcasm at the lunacy he finds himself in. Both of them easily outshine McBride€™s overly familiar hick shtick, and Eisenberg€™s twitchy attempts at playing it cool, but even with the laughs you probably wouldn€™t want to hang with any of these guys on a long-term basis. 30 Minutes or Less Perhaps that€™s why we€™re in their company for such a short amount of time, any longer and you€™d start wondering who you should really be rooting for. To help with the attention deficit story telling Fleischer and Diliberti imbue their rapid-fire adventure with fun scatter-gun references to 80s action staples, with easy to spot nods to Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and the above mentioned Point Break. And with Nick€™s line €˜You know I don€™t check that shit, I€™m off the grid€™ they even manage to poke a stick at Eisenberg€™s portrayal of everyone€™s favourite billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. Which isn€™t to say that sitting through 30 Minutes Or Less isn€™t enjoyable. It may not quite reach the anarchic heights it wants to, but for a fair stretch of the brief running time it is laugh out loud funny. Sure, you can blame that on the crowd effect (or just Swardson), but as opposed to what appear to be most of Eisenberg€™s customers, I wouldn€™t try and weasel out of paying for the privilege. 30 Minutes or Less poster 30 Minutes Or Less in cinema's today.
Contributor
Contributor

Film writer, drinker of Guinness. Part-time astronaut. Man who thinks there are only two real Indiana Jones movies, writing loglines should be an Olympic event, and that science fiction, comic book movies, 007, and Hal Hartley's Simple Men are the cures for most evils. Currently scripting.