Banana Scoop

How does a lazy pizza boy and his small Indian school-teacher friend react when they’re forced to rob a bank?  Why, they simply go to the closest dollar tree, get some spray paint, some toy guns, ski masks, and go the closest bank that’s how.  Forget the hesitation, paranoia, and other basic human emotion and let’s just have them be able to outrun the cops, deal with guns pointed in their faces, and bombs strapped to their chests.  That’s where 30 Minutes or Less does wrong, while it provides decent comedy in its leads, it’s not irreverent enough to qualify as the good kind of absurd nor is it believable enough carry the heart it tries to convey.

Nick (Jessie Eisenberg) is a loser delivery pizza boy who has no ambitions in life and his best friend is Chet (Aziz Ansari), who is a loser elementary school teacher.  When Nick gets kidnapped by two loser adults (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) and has a bomb strapped to his chest, he and Chet are forced to go rob a bank.

The monkeys are not as funny as they could've been.

The story is relatively straightforward with no real surprises or twists.  The characters that play the leads are relatively difficult to relate to or enjoy for that matter.  The above description utilizes the word loser to a far extent, primarily because each of the character’s leads are in-fact losers.  In truth, I didn’t like any this movie’s leads as much as I should have, primarily because I think they were ‘phoned in’.  Jessie Eisenberg uses his tired typecast character from Zombieland, The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale [primarily from Whale because of his douchiness in this flick], Danny McBride usually has particularly hilarious moments, but he channels a lot of the crap similar to Your Highness, Nick Swardson isn’t near as funny as he is in his standup, and Aziz Ansari is pretty much Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation but he can use the F word now.

As for the story, while the premise was a cool idea [and surprisingly original], it’s squandered useless because the writers took it no where engaging nor did its cast make the best with its material.  By this I mean, 30 Minutes or Less had a lot of potential to be very cool, but the actual slapstick was neither fun nor engaging and the movie’s story is riddled with often pointless conversation and subplot points [Chet’s sister, the tanning salon, Michael Pena’s Hitman, the Major].  For me, as I watched this movie, it felt very cut and paste: this happens, then this happens, then this happens, and then finally this happens.  There was no fluidity or smooth transitioning between major points whether it be how Nick goes from having the bomb strapped to his chest to the school or how they just randomly get away from the police.  This is important because instead of coming off as a movie, 30 Minutes of Less felt more like a series of skits held loosely together by a weak narrative.

Yeah, we can totally handle this...no problem.

I particularly didn’t like this movie because most of the time, it didn’t make any sense, and me as the audience couldn’t get on board with what was happening most of the time.  For one, I mentioned that a lot of the performances were ‘phoned in’ and actually didn’t provide that many laughs, which more or less resulted in Danny McBride and Nick Swardson having incredibly stupid, irrelevant, and unfunny conversations.  The above mentioned lack of transitioning also had me questioning what was going on throughout the entire movie.  We’re forced to simply believe that these two people, a pizza boy and a school teacher, are able to simply rob a bank and are completely fine emotionally afterwards?  Or that there is literally NO possible way Nick could call someone/anyone to calmly explain what was happening and to have someone help him?  Or that the fact that $100,000 dollars of marked bills were stolen and that we only hear from the police in the five minutes it takes to outrun them?  No.  I didn’t buy any of that.  Some movies are able forgo reason provided they are irreverent enough, but the problem with 30 Minutes or Less is that it tries very hard to find a medium between complete absurdity and reason that it simply doesn’t work.

With unrelatable, nearly despicably stupid characters, a weak narrative, and a predictable and unfunny script, 30 Minutes or Less for me was an unfortunate waste of time.  It’s talented cast of improvisers and stand up comedians are squandered in an unfortunate situation and there isn’t enough funny lines inbetween the disjointed story to make up for any of the many faults this movie has.

1.5/5 Stars