30 minutes or less movie trailer

The story follows Nick (Eisenberg), a slacker whose only function in life is speeding through town delivering pizzas under the pressure of a “30 Minutes or Less” deadline. Nick’s best (and seemingly only) friend is Chet (Ansari), a school teacher who has put aside his slacker ways. Chet is also a twin, and his sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria) happens to be Nick’s longtime secret crush. When this fact gets aired one night during a no-holds-barred bro-fight, Nick and Chet having a major falling out .

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30 minutes or less movie cast and crew

Directed by

Ruben Fleischer


Jesse Eisenberg

Danny McBride

Aziz Ansari

Nick Swardson

Dilshad Vadsaria

Michael Peña

Bianca Kajlich

Fred Ward  

Sam Johnston

Jack Foley

30 minutes or less movie overview

The story follows Nick (Eisenberg), a slacker whose only function in life is speeding through town delivering pizzas under the pressure of a “30 Minutes or Less” deadline. Nick’s best (and seemingly only) friend is Chet (Ansari), a school teacher who has put aside his slacker ways. Chet is also a twin, and his sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria) happens to be Nick’s longtime secret crush. When this fact gets aired one night during a no-holds-barred bro-fight, Nick and Chet having a major falling out.

…Which doesn’t last long, since Nick soon finds himself in the clutches of two monkey-masked conspirators named Dwayne and Travis (McBride and Swardson). They strap a bomb-vest to Nick to coerce him into robbing a bank, in order to get money to pay a hitman (Michael Peña) to kill Dwayne’s militant father (Fred Ward), thereby leaving Dwayne to inherit daddy’s multi-million Lotto fortune. Nick ropes Chet into helping carry out the brazen bank robbery mission – but of course, nothing goes as Nick, or his tormentors, initially plan.

30 Minutes or Less is a comedy that has a dumb plot, which fails to redeem itself through hilarity. The story and script by newcomer Michael Diliberti offer some hilarious moments, but not the kind to leave you in tears or go down in memory as classic comedy. For most of its thankfully brief runtime, the movie will keep you smiling, accented by a few good chuckles. On the whole, though, it’s an entirely forgettable affair.

What works in the film is the chemistry between the actors. Given where their careers are now, seeing Eisenberg (an Oscar-nominee) paired with Ansari (a comedian on the rise) is definitely odd – but the two play off one another well and have some enjoyable banter. In scenes when he’s on his own, Eisenberg’s character Nick seems to be phoning it in when it comes to life, and Eisenberg himself seems to be phoning it in playing the part. At first Nick is a vacant and uninteresting character – when he’s facing danger, we get the usual Eisenberg neurotic schtick. Thankfully Ansari is on hand to deliver some actual funny quips and one-liners, proving yet again that comedic timing and charisma are not skills that just any actor can master. You need actual comedians to bring the funny.

McBride and Swardson are the other comedic pairing of the movie, and fall into much of the same category as Eisenberg/Ansari: Swardson (a rising comedian) actually brings some great laughs as an awkward and dopey sidekick, while McBride (an established star) seems like he’s phoning in an episode of his HBO series Eastbound & Down. The only difference between Dwayne and Kenny Powers, is that one character plays Major League Baseball in between his hair-brained schemes and self-deluded trash-talk. Paired together, however, the two dunderheads are amusing.

The real standout in the film is Michael Peña (Eastbound & Down, Observe and Report), who yet again makes a lot out of a little as the hitman “Chango,” a no-nonsense thug who quickly tires of all the idiots he’s dealing with. If there is one scene in the film that stands out in my memory, it’s definitely Peña’s bathroom mirror rant.

One thing a dumb comedy shouldn’t do is make you question the technique of the man behind the camera; and yet, I found myself doing just that. The way Ruben Fleischer shoots the film is downright strange and often obtrusive – especially at the start. A lot of the shots in the first third of the film are so close and tight, and the editing so choppy, that it’s distracting to the eye. Later, Fleischer starts to play with stylistic shooting techniques like slow-rotating establishing shots, which were baffling in a film this silly. By the final third of the movie, Fleischer settled into more standard shooting methods, which was fortunate. On the whole, though, it felt like the director was using this as a throwaway film to experiment with his style.

In the end, 30 Minutes or Less is bland, silly, and the story is full of plot holes and dangling threads. The performances of the actors fill a few of the gaps with some moderate humor, but the direction is a distraction. This is a movie you would be safe (even better off) approaching as a rental, if not as a premium cable channel premiere.

30 minutes or less movie review

he best comedy of the summer, 30 Minutes or Less is cool and refreshing because all it wants to do is make you laugh.Rather than come to a screeching stop to impart pretentious and trite life lessons, the film barrels along at high speed, gathering momentum even as it occasionally changes gears to allow breathing space between physical gags, profane outbursts, and character revelations. It's the equivalent of stopping for a red light by downshifting and stomping your foot on the brake simultaneously. The motor continues to hum; the steering wheel vibrates; the radio keeps playing.

Ruben Fleischer directs with the same, apparently artless and carefree style he brought to 2009's Zombieland. While 30 Minutes or Less is a lesser film -- you can hear the gears grinding occasionally, some of the jokes fall flat, the comedy stylings of Danny McBride and Nick Swardson wear thin -- all you need to do is hang on for a few minutes until the engine catches and roars back to life. Fleischer relentlessly drives things forward, not worrying if the film sometimes strays from a straight path to its destination or fails to obey all the traffic signs

McBride and Swardson play Dwayne and Travis, no good lazy bums who are living off Dwayne's dad in a nicer neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dwayne's dad, known as The Major (Fred Ward), is a retired vet who won $10 million in a lottery and is tired of Dwayne's continual lack of industry. Dwayne is confident he'll receive his his father's winnings as an inheritance, but he's worried the old man will spend it all before he dies.While receiving a lap dance from Juicy (Bianca Kajlich), his favorite stripper, Dwayne idly mentions his fantasy of knocking off the old man. Hearing how much money is involved, Juicy suggests that Dwayne hire her gangster boyfriend Chango (Michael Peña) to do the deed. To come up with the money to pay Chango, Dwayne dreams up the idea of strapping a bomb to the body of a hapless stranger in order to force him to rob a bank -- or get blown up.

Dwayne is the more devious and psychotic of the two, a mean bastard who's motivated entirely by self-interest, while the gullible Travis is sweeter, dumber, and more loyal, considering Dwayne his best friend and willing to do anything he says.In a parallel close friendship, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) and Chet (Aziz Ansari) are closer to equal footing, though Chet is clearly pulling ahead in the career achievement category. He's recently secured a full-time teaching position and welcomes the thought of moving calmly, if boringly, into adulthood.

Nick is still working as a pizza delivery driver, madly racing around town to meet his employer's "30 minutes or less or it's free" delivery guarantee. Nick doesn't appear to have any specific ambitions in life, as far as a career or meaningful work is concerned, but he's decided he wants to pursue a relationship with Chet's younger sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria, pictured), who has recently announced she'll be moving away for her own career opportunity. Nick's admission of interest in Kate prompts a fiery confrontation with Chet and the termination of their long friendship.

And then, late one night, Nick makes a fateful delivery and wakes up with a bomb strapped to his chest.

The danger for a movie like 30 Minutes or Less is that if you don't find it funny, there's not much else to grab onto. Eisenberg locks into his hesitant, fragile, uncertain mode, the one that keeps getting him confused with Michael Cera, but that makes him a good foil / straight man for Ansari. The teaming of McBride and Swardson is more problematic, in that Swardson's bumbling goodness doesn't entirely cancel out McBride's more loathsome persona.

Overall, however, director Fleischer keeps nearly all of the plates spinning in the air, resulting in a celebratory feeling when 30 Minutes or Less crosses the finish line with a total running time of just 83 minutes. At last, a comedy that doesn't overstay its welcome.