30 Minutes or Less

"Two guys in masks strapped a bomb to my chest and now I have less than nine hours to rob a bank!"
"And your first thought was to come to a school filled with young children?!"

Dwayne (McBride) and Travis (Swardson) are fledgling criminals with big plans.  Step 1) Force someone to get them $100,000.  Step 2) Hire a hitman (Pena) to kill Dwayne’s wealthy Vietnam vet father.  Step 3) Start a business, which will be the front for an illegal operation.

Setting step one in motion, they order pizza.  When it arrives, they don gorilla masks and attack the delivery guy, Nick (Eisenberg).  When he wakes up, there is a bomb strapped to his chest and he has 10 hours to rob a bank or die.

Nick is a slacker with no ambitions, until he has a time limit.  With the help of best friend, Chet (Ansari) a teacher, can Nick pull off the heist and survive to get the girl of his dreams, Chet’s twin sister Kate (Vadsaria)?


An interesting premise, stellar cast, and memorable trailers made this a must-see film (I saw it opening night).  The plot is basic, but delivers solid laughs.  Aziz Ansari wins the VMP award for this film.  He has excellent chemistry with Jesse Eisenberg, and gets the best and most quotable lines.  Eisenberg and Ansari have the funniest scenes in the film, including the actual bank robbery.

While the film was funny, it could have been better.  The filmmakers could tone down (or completely remove) the raunchier dialogue and the scene of nudity.  They detracted from the story and most people in the theater didn't laugh.  While Danny McBride and Nick Swardson are well-known names within the comedy world, their scenes were the raunchiest ones.

This is director Ruben Fleischer's sophomore film.  Two years ago he made his directorial debut with the film Zombieland, which also starred Jesse Eisenberg.  This is a decent second film, and I look forward to seeing what he does with future film efforts.

To watch clips of the funniest / most quotable scenes check out ranker.com.

30 Minutes or Less (2011) 83 minutes
Rating: R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, nudity and some violence.
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg as Nick
Danny McBride as Dwayne
Aziz Ansari as Chet
Nick Swardson as Travis
Dilshad Vadsaria as Kate
Michael Pena as Chango