30 MINUTES OR LESS

“30 MINUTES OR LESS” (Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari & Nick Swardson)
Not a stellar cast by any means, but because it had a ‘Zombieland’ connection I decided to give it a shot. It’s not bad, but it’s also not all that funny. I think there were times when they meant it to be & actors like McBride simply don’t know how to be funny so it didn’t produce any laughs during his scenes, but it seemed to be more of a ‘statement’ on using terrorists threats to get what one wants in today’s society.
Apparently something similar to the plot of ‘30 Minutes’ actually took place a few years ago & so many critics decided this film was just in bad taste because of that & panned it. Another reason I wanted to check it out for myself.
Jesse Eisenberg plays pizza delivery driver Nick. Danny McBride plays a useless pot smoking alcoholic named Dwayne. Aziz Ansari plays Chet – Nick’s best friend whom he breaks up with after Nick admits that he slept with Chet’s sister, Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria)
Nick Swardson plays Travis, the perfect companion for McBride’s Dwayne as he too is one of those comic actors that rarely says anything funny.
The whole idea of the film is that Dwayne wants to hire a hit man to kill his ex-marine father (Fred Ward) so he can inherit his house & collect on his life insurance. But first he needs money to pay off the hired killer (Michael Pena as Chango)
Dwayne & buddy Travis devise a plan where they use pizza delivery boy Nick by strapping a bomb-vest to him & tell him to rob a bank or they’ll detonate the bomb.
“When you have the money, call this number & I’ll give you the code to deactivate the bomb,” Dwayne tells Nick. Nick, in his panic, goes to Chet despite their recent falling out. Chet teaches elementary school children, so when he discovers Nick has a bomb strapped to his chest he yells in a high-pitched voice, “You have a weapon of mass destruction on you & you decide the best place to go was to a building full of children?”
Unfortunately, Ansari delivers ALL of his lines in the same high-pitched voice throughout the remainder of the film... Yes, it gets monotonous.
However, as a ‘statement’ on today’s world, “30 Minutes Or Less” is a decent film – As a comedy... well, let’s just say that it ain’t no “Zombieland”.