'30 Minutes or Less': Dumb-de-dumb-dumb

The action-comedy used to belong to the smart guys. To name a few: Eddie Murphy's sly detective in "Beverly Hills Cop," Chevy Chase's brilliant liar in "Fletch," the frenetic team of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in "Silver Streak."

These days, the action-comedy belongs to dolts. To name a few: Seth Rogen's delusional mall cop in "Observe and Report," Jack Black's flailing drug addict in "Tropic Thunder," Danny McBride's inept pot dealer in "Pineapple Express."

Whatever this says about changing tastes, moviegoers still deserve better than "30 Minutes or Less," an only occasionally amusing entry into an increasingly formulaic genre. Its heroes are Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a pot-smoking pizza-delivery boy, and his friend Chet (a fast-riffing Aziz Ansari), a junior high schoolteacher almost as mature as his students. Their conversations revolve mainly around movies, sex and beer.

The villains are Dwayne (McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson, "Just Go With It"), slightly older knuckleheads whose conversations also revolve around movies, sex and beer, plus the topic of killing Dwayne's rich dad (Fred Ward). To raise the money for a hit man, they order a pizza, strap a bomb on poor Nick and tell him to rob a bank. Chet reluctantly lends a hand.

Director Ruben Fleischer, who so deftly handled 2009's "Zombieland" (also with Eisenberg), disappointingly sticks to the playbook here. McBride once again plays the boastful buffoon; Swardson merely imitates McBride. Michael Peña, playing a spaced-out criminal, reprises his role from "Observe and Report" nearly gesture for gesture. The violence, as in "Pineapple Express," aims to shock -- people are shot and burned -- but generally lacks impact.

The movie treats its characters as too stupid to take seriously. Is that why they're allowed to use blithely racist slurs against Indians and Arabs? Stupidity certainly can be funny -- at least when it's done intelligently.