30 Minutes or Less

When am I going to get a comedy I can really sink my teeth into? As with "30 Minutes or Less", its premise was actually interesting, but when put in application, it just fell flat on its face. Trailer looked good, however it's supposed to look good to sell the film. But I have seen trailers that, in my opinion, didn't sell the film that turned out to be better films than I could've imagined. What happened here?

Two fledgling, inept criminals, Dwayne and Travis (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) decide to kidnap a pizza delivery guy, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), drug him, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else be blown to bits. The real sick part of this plot, if you want to call it one, is that the money Dwayne and Travis stand to get is for a hit guy, Chango (Michael Pena) to kill Dwayne's regimented, by-the-book, ex-military Dad appropriately called 'The Major' (Fred Ward) who is always on Dwayne's case about being a loser. Apparently Dwayne's Dad won a 5 million dollar lottery, so before he has the chance to spend the rest, Dwayne wants him out of the picture.

While Nick is rushing around to figure out what to do to remedy his situation with the bomb, he ends up spilling the beans to his roommate, Chet (Aziz Ansari). Chet flips and the two try to do something to remedy this horrendous situation. But to what conclusion?

Others to round out the cast are Dilshad Vadsaria as Kate, Chet's twin sister and Nick's girlfriend, and Bianca Kajlich as Juicy, Chango's girlfriend.

This was slickly directed by Ruben Fleischer ("The Girls Guitar Club" '01 (short), "The Right Now! Show" '07 (TV movie), "Zombieland" '09), however poorly written by Michael Diliberti based on a story by Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan. The writing, as with so many comedies, was the culprit here. This guy had an interesting premise to work with; a great idea, but instead of working off of Eisenberg's droll humor using clever lines to make this work, he, like so many, resorted to a cascade of expletives, toilet humor, sexual references and the like. I'm not trying to be prudish, I know these small time criminals are basic trailer-trash, but every other word out of their mouths was four-letter words and if I heard one more sexual reference crack about them getting laid, I think I would've vomited. This was not a smart-dumb comedy, it certainly was not a smart comedy. This was just a very dumb comedy. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a total wash. Eisenberg's presence definitely made this anything palatable at all, and it had some other funny moments, but all in all, it fell flat as a pancake. 

Hollywood needs to get the hint. You get what you pay for. If you hire writers with minimal experience, you'll get minimal impact and effectiveness in what is to be conveyed to the audience for an entertaining 'ride'.

Out of 4 stars: 1.5                             Rated: R                          83min.