30 Minutes or Less (2011)

Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else...

Director:

Ruben Fleischer

Writers:

Michael Diliberti (screenplay), Michael Diliberti (story)

Stars:

Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jesse Eisenberg	...	Nick
Danny McBride	...	Dwayne
Aziz Ansari	...	Chet
Nick Swardson	...	Travis
Dilshad Vadsaria	...	Kate
Michael Peña	...	Chango
Bianca Kajlich	...	Juicy
Fred Ward	...	The Major
Sam Johnston	...	15 Year Old #1
Jack Foley	...	15 Year Old #2
Elizabeth Shapiro	...	Chet's Date (as Elizabeth Wright Shapiro)
Brett Gelman	...	Pizza Boss
Paul Tierney	...	Rodney
Staci Lynn Fletcher	...	Family Dollar Cashier (as Staci Fletcher)
Gary Brichetto	...	Mr. Fisher

Storyline

The not so smart Dwayne intends to open a massage parlor with his partner Travis, but he does not have money for the investment. He decides to hire a hit-man to kill his father, The Major, who won a large amount of money in the lottery years ago, but the killer demands US$ 100,000 for the job. Dwayne and Travis kidnap the pizza delivery boy Nick and they dress Nick in a vest with a timer and several bombs. Then Dwayne tells Nick that he has ten hours to rob US$ 100,000 from a bank. Once he does, he would give Nick the code to release the vest. Nick summons his best friend Chet to help him in the heist but the scheme does not work the way Dwayne has plotted.

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Plot Keywords:

unlikely criminal | heist | pizza delivery boy | sony | sony vaio | 

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Taglines:

A lot can happen in 30 minutes.

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Crime

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, nudity and some violence

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English German Spanish

Release Date:

12 August 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

30 minutos o menos

Filming Locations:

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$28,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$13,330,118, 14 August 2011, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$37,053,924, 25 September 2011

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation,Media Rights Capital (MRC),Red Hour Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Datasat Dolby Digital Dolby Surround 7.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The restaurant, for which Jesse Eisenberg drives, is a real restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the film takes place. It is called Vito's Pizza.

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Goofs

When Nick and Chet are being chased in the Datsun, Nick shifts gears, indicating he is driving a manual transmission car. However, after he shifts and is performing his 180-stunt, a close-up shot shows his feet and there is no clutch. In a manual transmission car, the pedals are close together, and the brake pedal is smaller due to the clutch next to it.

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Quotes

Chet: [trying to pick out the right toy gun to buy and use in the robbery by practicing with it in the store] EVERYBODY! GET DOWN ON THE GR...
Nick: Shhh! Jesus!
Chet: [more quietly] Everybody! Get down on the ground NOW and go get us our money!
Nick: Uh, how are they supposed to get the money when you just told them...
Chet: Go get us our money and THEN everybody get down on the ground!

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the credits, there is an ad for Dwayne's tanning/prostitution parlor, Major Tan.

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Connections

References Kontora (1987)

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Soundtracks

Raining Blood
Written by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King
Performed by Slayer (uncredited)
Ringtone courtesy of Gregg Pagani

User Reviews

Ouch

There are plenty of bad puns to be had with the title of this movie, but the cheesiest and most appropriate I can offer after watching it is "83 Minutes Long and Still a Mess." In the age of the three-hour comedy, I thought it would be a relief to watch a laugher with a tighter belt. Unfortunately, even with the fast title, Less dragged on much longer than I wished it to.

Less seems like a half-a**ed debacle, where everyone including the Captain jumped ship when they felt the movie sinking. The direction, if you can call it that, was done by Ruben Fleischer, who couldn't have possibly given his maximum effort on this film. His recent film success was directing the 2009 film Zombieland, which was a taut and intriguing comedy. Zombieland had a less original premise than Less, but consistently provided laughter and a few tense action sequences. Less similarly attempts to combine action and comedy, but provides an extremely flat and jumbled film.

The writing is slovenly. There are cheap laughs aplenty, and even a few good belly-busters, but laughter is inevitable when you try and force a joke every single line of the movie. My question is, why did the writers, and director for that matter, keep the crap that didn't stick to the wall? Watching Less felt like watching a movie shot in one take before it hits the editing room; so many intended jokes fall flat and fail to register. Even lazier than the joke writing is the character writing. Of course Less is a comedy, and an intentionally stupid one at that. Viewers shouldn't go in expecting to see detailed character development a la Mad Men; I certainly didn't. But the characters in Less change personalities and character traits on a whim and at an alarming rate.

In the movie's first scene, we see Jesse Eisenberg's character Nick, calmly and deliberately con two teenagers out of 40 dollars. But, after the first ten minutes of the movie, even before he gets the bomb/plot device strapped on his chest (which admittedly would make anyone change their disposition), he turns into a manic motormouth. The most offensive and unexplained character shift is that of the amateur criminal Travis, played by Nick Swardson (who in a side note needs to find a new agent after agreeing to star in the upcoming guaranteed bomb Bucky Larson. Find the trailer if you haven't seen it already; I almost clawed my eyes out in the theater seeing it before Less). Travis starts out as a complete imbecile, seemingly unable to think independently. Then, throughout the movie, Travis tries on about three or four different personalities before Swardson gives up altogether. And with writing that uneven, who could blame him?

Aziz Ansari predictably throws down the best performance in Less, and not simply by default. Unlike his stand-up comedy, which is a consistently high-pitched freight train of energy, Ansari is able to give his Chet character a dynamism I didn't expect from him. Sure, there are plenty of squeaky outbursts, but he knows that the outburst seems louder and more hilarious if there is a calm before the detonation. Ansari is the only actor relishing the gags, but unfortunately is fed plenty of misfired jokes by the writers as well. Danny McBride, deservedly renowned for his Kenny Powers character on HBO's Eastbound and Down, seems content to cash the paycheck and move on. He plays Dwayne, a much less funny Powers reprise, whose bumbling criminal character the writers mistakenly believe we care about. They inexplicably allow the movie to take a plot turn into his domain, yet the audience could care less what fate awaits him.

Good comedy shouldn't be as strenuous a venture as it is watching 30 Minutes or Less. Luckily, we all live in the internet age, and while I no longer have this option, you can save your ticket money and watch Aziz Ansari stand-up videos on YouTube instead.

For my other movie reviews, visit http://scottsdoublefeature.blogspot.com