Review: '30 Minutes or Less' is inessential but not unfunny

Film: 30 Minutes or Less (A)
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Dilshad Vadsaria, Nick Swardson, Fred Ward
Rating: ***

30 Minutes or Less is a comedy about a laidback pizza delivery boy Nick (Eisenberg) who is coerced by boneheaded wannabe criminal masterminds (make that wannabe millionaires) Dwayne (McBride) and Travis (Swardson) into robbing a local bank. With a ten-hour deadline, Nick must reconcile with his relatively clear-headed India-American buddy-turned-frenemy Chet (Ansari), an elementary school teacher, whom he antagonized by revealing in a heated exchange that he defiled his twin sister Katie (Vadsaria).

Dwayne, who gets Nick to do his bidding by strapping a bomb on him, wants the money to hire an assassin to knock off his old man, a hardened Vietnam war veteran referred to as the Major (Ward) who, besides aggravating his son with his expectations, has a large sum of money he won in the lottery stored away.  While Nick and Chet are in a race against time, the stripper who put the assassination idea in Dwayne’s peanut-sized mind, and the assassin try to muscle their way into the duo’s racket.
 

30 Minutes or Less is an action-packed, crime-centric, buddy film packed with lower than low-brow humour. (Several instances of this brand of comedy seen while Dwayne illustrates his plans to Travis to set up a prostitution ring disguised as a tanning salon)

The bomb element in 30 Minutes or Less, along with the expected car chase sequences, gives it a frantic quality to it which lends itself well to the overall pacing. (If you’re going to have your comedy served stupid, it better be quickly too, right?)
 
Eisenberg’s character, apart from the freaking out that is understandable when you are reduced to a ticking time bomb, is a bit cooler than those he is usually typecast as and surprisingly, it is Ansari with his high-pitched, this-can’t-be-happening voice who’s the overly high-strung one this time. Both are adequate though McBride and Swardson’s characters’ dialogues and antics are generally funnier.

30 Minutes or Less is inessential, but undeniably funny. With coloured language like the liberal use of the word ‘finger-bang’ and check list of references to sexual depravties, 30 Minutes or Less isn’t the most puritanical comedy out there. And the censors have done their bit by lacerating the film rather thoroughly. If you are repulsed by the potty-mouth gags or the ensuing censorship, skip it or wait for the DVD.