30 Minutes or Less (2011)

Hey, I say if a bomb is what gets us to get our pizzas faster, then I’m all for it.

Two small-town criminals (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) planning a big-time bank heist wind up abducting pizza delivery driver Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) and forcing him to commit the robbery — giving him a strict time limit to boot. To pull off the caper, Nick enlists the aid of a former buddy (Aziz Ansari). With the law, the crooks and the clock all breathing down their necks, the duo also try to patch up their troubled friendship.

After noticing that this was going to be done by the same dude who did Zombieland, and it had one of it’s stars already in the film, I was uber excited. Not too disappointing either.

My problem with this film was that the beginning it really didn’t know what exactly it wanted to be just yet. I mean we have this story that focuses on both guys and just where they come from, what they do, and how their like but you don’t know whether it’s just going to be a dark comedy or just plain and simply jokes filled with cursing.

Though when the film picks up, it really had me going. The premise here is actually pretty cool I must say and the actual comedy that pursues it is also good as well. I laughed a lot here because it’s lowbrow humor, but lowbrow humor done right with still enough funny lines to keep you glued in. Now of course there is the fair share of dirty moments here too but not a lot of the humor was based on that, which is a real surprise since almost any comedy that comes out nowadays seems to be trying to one-up the other in raunch level.

However, though the comedy here did get a little too dark for my taste at points. Some person suffers a gun-shot wound in front of a little girl while she screams in a scary, non-comedic tone in one scene, which wasn’t very funny and more of disturbing. Also, there was a lot of moments where this film just felt crude and offensive just for the sake of shock value. There was a couple of black people jokes here that made me nervously laugh because there was actually a black person right next to me and I just kind of shrugged off the laugh, but this proved that it didn’t really need to be in there in the first place.

I also like how director Ruben Fleischer kept this film going at a brisk pace of just 82 minutes without really ever trying to get any real humanizing themes about its character, or central message across either. It’s just basically a lot of laughs, action, and some sexy women thrown in there but not too much.

The cast here is what really makes this film a total blast. Jesse Eisenberg is playing the same kind of twitchy and kind of geeky but funny character he always plays here as Nick; Aziz Ansari finally got his big role here as Chet and just lets it all out every second he gets fully making me laugh every time he was on screen; Danny McBride does the same character he always plays too but that still works once again as Dwayne; and Nick Swardson is also very funny but sort of sympathetic as Travis. All four play off of each other so well and add so much more hilarity to this film than anyone could expect.

Consensus: Though it’s comedy gets a little lost and the film itself takes a little bit of awhile to get going, 30 Minutes or Less is still very funny with lowbrow humor rather than just raunchy jokes, a talented cast, and a slick time limit that keeps this film moving along as more and more fun ensues.

7.5/10=Rental!!

Also, did anybody else notice the little “The Social Network” joke? Maybe I’m wrong but for some reason, I think that there was one put in here. Let me know if you noticed it too.