After watching director Ruben Fleischer’s feature narrative debut Zombieland blow just about every other comedy out of the water, he’s one director I’ll be paying close attention to. His sophomore effort 30 Minutes or Less does not quite match Zombieland‘s merits, but it’s still a worthy comedy nonetheless.
Once again, Flischer casts The Social Network‘s Jesse Eisenberg as his central character. In 30 Minutes, Eisenberg plays a smart, quiet and somewhat socially awkward pizza delivery guy who is kidnapped while delivering a pizza to a trailer in B-F-E. Two monkey-masked bad guys (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) plan to use the minimum-wage dweeb as a monkey of their own for their white trash plan.
The father of McBride is a royal bastard who leads an A-hole’s life piddling away loads of cash that he won in the lottery. Wanting get his hands on his dad’s money, McBride plans to hire an assassin to kill his dad and inherit the dough – only the assassin (Michael Pena) charges $100,000 up front. So McBride and his fellow white trash buddy kidnap a pizza guy, strap a bomb to his chest and force him to rob a bank. Not wanting to die alone, Eisenberg drags his childhood buddy (Aziz Ansari) along for the heist.
As expected from most R-rated comedies nowadays, 30 Minutes is extremely crude and vulgar, not recommended for the easily offended. Those who enjoy a good R-rated comedy will find it hilarious – even if not a fan of one of the three comedic co-stars. Because McBride, Swardson and Ansari each has his own style of humor, you never stop laughing. If you dislike one of them, just wait because he’ll be off-screen and replaced by someone else in just a minute.
30 Minutes or Less isn’t the greatest movie out there, but it’s much better than recent contender The Change-Up and well-worth watching at least once.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
