30:Minutes or Less

30:Minutes or Less casts Jesse Eisenberg as Nick, an affable slacker whose job delivering pizza eventually brings him into contact with a couple of moronic criminals (Danny McBride’s Dwayne and Nick Swardson’s Travis) – with the film’s thin plot kicked into gear after the two men strap a bomb to Nick’s chest and force him to rob a bank. Though it runs just under an hour and a half, 30:Minutes or Less boasts a fairly plodding sensibility that generally ensures it feels a whole lot longer – with director Ruben Fleischer’s freewheeling sensibilities effectively highlighting the various deficiencies within Michael Diliberti’s meandering screenplay. The most obvious problem here is the aggressive manner by which Fleischer attempts to elicit laughs, as the filmmaker has infused the proceedings with a desperately over-the-top feel that’s reflected most keenly in the uniformly (and tediously) broad performances. (Very little of this, however, is actually funny.) The increasingly frenetic bent of Diliberti’s script admittedly prevents the viewer from tuning out completely, with the robbery itself, which is handled surprisingly well, proving effective at all-too-briefly injecting the proceedings with a burst of much-needed energy. But, and this is the bottom line, there’s simply never a point at which the film’s one-dimensional characters become compelling enough to warrant all this action and mayhem, with the pervasively superficial atmosphere ultimately cementing 30:Minutes or Less‘ place as a disappointingly empty piece of work.

** out of ****