Film Reviews

30 Minutes or Less

• Rating:
• Director: Ruben Fleischer
• Starring: Jesse Eisenberg
• Details: US / 83 Mins (15A)

It's hard not to feel slightly let down by 30 Minutes or Less. It's not that it's a bad film - far from it - it's an entertaining enough flick. It's just given Jesse Eisenberg's last teaming with this director (on Zombieland), I expected more. Never really blending the comedy and action as well as the comedy and horror of their previous effort, it still moves fast enough with a couple of laughs thrown in.
Eisenberg is a small town pizza delivery guy who is forced by Danny McBride and Nick Swardson's bank robbers to do their job for them. Strapping a bomb to his chest, they tell him he has hours to do the deed, or he'll end up in literal pieces. Roping in his former best friend (hyper schoolteacher Aziz Ansari) for help, he sets about trying to figure out a way to get out of this predicament alive.
Helmer Ruben Fleischer is thought of highly enough in Hollywood circles that he came extremely close to directing a fourth Mission Impossible film, and was eventually entrusted with an incredible cast for currently shooting crime epic, The Gangster Squad. His work here is solid, and a some of the individual elements of the film work as slickly as you'd expect from the young helmer; it's just the comedy bleeds tension from the already choppy action, and the action interrupts the flow of the comedy - something executed with such impressive clarity with Zombieland.
There are laughs; although the audible level of chuckles inflicted may depend strongly on the two marmite comedy actors sharing screentime. McBride's sense of humour is instinctively abrasive and, in my opinion, hilarious. That said, he's hardly stretching himself here and most will see it as a familar play on a heightened persona. Ansari on the other hand is a little annoying, even if he does have a couple of good lines. Thankfully, Eisenberg brings his usual frantic charm to proceedings and his work here is good.
Not bad; but given the immediate previous work of the same director, somewhat disappointing.

Review by Mike Sheridan