This buddy caper-comedy teams nerdy pizza-delivery guy Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) with bumbling Chet (Aziz Ansari), a substitute schoolteacher pal and reluctant roommate. Nick is abducted by two bickering sociopaths—Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson)—wearing gorilla masks, who strap a ticking C4 bomb vest to his chest and force him to rob a bank, demanding that he produce $100,000 in 10 hours, or else. This kidnapping is an integral part of Dwayne's idea to hire a thug (Michael Peña) to kill his ex-Marine father (Fred Ward)—a multimillion-dollar lottery winner—so he can open a brothel under the auspices of a tanning salon. Named for the time-pressured pizza parlor where Nick works, director Ruben Fleischer's 30 Minutes or Less comes up several slices short on the making sense front, delivering neither an interesting heist plan nor a compelling slacker subplot. What we have instead is a moronic exercise in racial, gay, and penis jokes coupled with a steady stream of inane profanity spewed by the central quartet of losers. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include the “Blowing Up with the Cast & Crew” making-of featurette (14 min.), deleted scenes (12 min.), outtakes (6 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a picture-in-picture video commentary (with director Ruben Fleischer and costars Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Nick Swardson), “The Perfect Crime: Action and Comedy” production featurette (11 min.), and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a lame film.] (S. Granger)
30 Minutes or Less
Sony, 83 min., R, DVD: $30.99, Blu-ray: $35.99, Nov. 29 Volume 26, Issue 6
30 Minutes or Less
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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