Movie review: '30 Minutes or Less,' 1.5 stars

30 Minutes or Less
1.5 stars
Directed by
Ruben Fleischer
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson
Rated R

If you give a character enough one-liners, some of them are bound to zing. That seems to be the math behind “30 Minutes or Less,” a woefully misguided, in-your-face action comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson.

McBride stars as Dwayne, an unemployed loser who lives off his rich dad and spends his days screwing around with a sycophantic sidekick (Swardson). One night at the strip club, an opportunistic lady convinces Dwayne to hire a hit man to whack his dad for the inheritance money. But Dwayne needs dough for the hit man, so he decides to rob a bank.

To steer attention away from himself, he forces Nick (Eisenberg), an unsuspecting pizza delivery man, to do the deed by strapping a bomb to his chest.

The plot is needlessly overwrought — something that’s excusable if the movie can distract you with laughs, but “30 Minutes or Less” delivers one dead-on-arrival joke after another. Ansari, who plays the hapless buddy enlisted to help Nick, manages to draw some chuckles with his yappy charm. Mostly, though, the movie plays as four man-boys flinging one-liners at each other.

The actors have built up a lot of good will from their previous roles, but not enough to make this movie a worthwhile 83 minutes.