The film's plot is just how it is presented, so I will just focus on where the film fell short despite all the ingredients for success.
I saw the trailer for this and was hoping for a good, not great, summer comedy. The quality of writing in this genre can be difficult to predict based on trailers because we see two minutes of footage trying to bring us to the theater, which often leaves the best jokes spoiled before the first minute. The main reason I chose to watch 30 Minutes or Less was because of Jesse Eisenburg. Coming off of his solid performance in The Social Network and his previous roles in comedy, surely he is in a position to wait for a good script.
There is a good cast here of actors who have had supporting roles or just a brief scene in big comedies over the past few years (Aziz Ansari and Nick Swardson in particular), who outside the comedy circuit aren't recognizable names yet. Danny McBride is getting perfect at playing this kind of character (the drug dealer in Observe and Report comes to mind) who projects the pure alpha male ego and aggression of someone of authority - all while misusing every quote, saying and fact considered to be common knowledge.
I just erased a long analysis of my gripes, which aren't necessary to explain in such detail. The script was just flawed for comedy in my eyes and no one could save it. Mainly, the movie went back and forth between crazy but theoretically possible and not trying at all to seem believable. The characters are sometimes exaggerated kinds of people that exist and those who cannot, and with whom no one could relate to. Good comedies require more than lots of good jokes and actors. It all must come together in some way that works on the level presented, because context is what humor plays off. The best jokes of the film could be put essentially anywhere in any film and work the same.
