30 Minutes or Less Blu-ray review

           

            The premise of this film is creative enough to sound promising, and it lives up to this promise for at least five minutes. Then the script fails the premise, never really finding stride or humor, even in humorous situations. A talented cast, previously successful director and a great idea somehow fails inexplicably in this unfunny action comedy. Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), 30 Minutes or Less is again starring Jesse Eisenberg in an action comedy, this time missing the horror element along with the humor.

            Eisenberg stars as Nick, a small town pizza delivery guy without ambition or determination for a better life. When he takes a delivery to a trap, Nick is kidnapped and wired with explosives by a pair of wannabe criminal masterminds (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson). They want money to perform a hit, and they threaten to blow up Nick if he doesn’t rob a bank for them. Nick tracks down his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari), an elementary school teacher, and together they make plans to rob a bank.

            There isn’t much more to the story than that, and at 83 minutes this feels like too much at times. There is so much promise in making of this film, but for some reason it just never made me laugh the way that I had hoped. The Blu-ray includes an exclusive featurette about the attempt to blend comedy and action. There is also a picture-in-picture commentary with Eisenberg, Ansari, McBride, Swardson and Fleischer. At times this is funnier than the film. There are also deleted scenes, outtakes and a cast and crew featurette.