The trailer looked good enough but my expectations has been set fairly low by early comments about 30 Minutes or Less, but I am happy to report I completely disagreed with them.
Although admittedly not the best comedy of the summer, it will surpass your expectations and be exactly what it’s advertised as; Jesse Eisenberg driving fast, delivering pizzas, and reminding us of his true comic genius.
Nick (Eisenberg) is a pizza delivery guy (hence the title) trapped in a dead end job he hates while the girl he likes (Greek’s Dilshad Vadsaria) prepares to move to Atlanta and his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) hopes to change from a substitute to permanent teaching position.
Meanwhile Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson) are middle aged men trying to find a way of out Dwayne’s parents’ house and away from his ex-marine father. While at the strip club one afternoon an idea hits Dwayne. If he can just get rid of his father, he would inherit everything and finally be free to do anything he wanted. All he needs now is 0,000 to pay a hit man to do the dirty work for him.
As fate, or the screenwriters, would have it, Nick is the unfortunate individual who innocently goes out one evening to deliver a pizza and ends up with a bomb strapped to his chest and 10 hours to acquire £100,000. Naturally the first thing he does is go to the local school and pick up his friend Chet for help. Now the pair must find out a way to get the money without involving the police or getting caught.
The first thing worth noting about this film is its length (83 minutes). In a good move quite a few comedy film that have come out recently have, thankfully, restricted themselves to 80-90 minutes. There’s nothing worse than a comedy which starts out good and then gets dragged out for an extra hour longer than needed to try and fit as many jokes as in as possible.
Although this film reunited Jesse Eisenberg with director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) it didn’t quite live up to that standard. The pitfalls 30 Minutes or Less falls into are the usual suspects – two idiot criminals who have little to no idea what they’re doing and a love interest which doesn’t serve much purpose except adding a female cast member to the list.
30 Minutes or Less isn’t one of the best comedies of the summer, but it’s definitely not a bad film to see. As long as you go in knowing what you’re getting yourself in for, you’ll find an enjoyable, funny and thoroughly entertaining film.
[Rating:3/5]
