30 Minutes or Less (2011) or, Idiots and Lesser Idiots

11/17/2013

30 Minutes or Less (2011) or, Idiots and Lesser Idiots

♥♥♥

The stupid-looking cast of Ruben Fleischer's 30 Minutes or Less are on display on its explosion-lined poster

A pizza delivery guy with a talent for racing has a fallout with his best friend about boning his friend's sister many years ago. Meanwhile, two unemployed idiots, who are just waiting for the one's US marine major dad (who is also a lottery winner) to die, so he can inherit his approximately 1 million $, get the idea to get rid of the healthy geezer before his time to speed things up. A hitman will cost them 100,000 $, they learn, so to get that, they kidnap the pizza guy, strap a bomb to his chest and force him to rob a bank. - What could go wrong?

30 Minutes or Less is written by Michael Diliberti (Stop-Loss (2008, associate producer)) and Matthew Sullivan (The Comedy Garage (2011)) and directed by great Washingtonian filmmaker Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland (2009)).

There are several problems with 30 Minutes or Less. One is its title, which is merely the motto of the pizza company, and doesn't really play any active part in the film. It is a bad sign, when movie-writers get their title from a pretty unrelated pizza motto.
Another problem is that the two groups of main characters should have been more different from each other. As it is, the two scheming idiots are really idiots, (one indication is that they are continually working on understanding how to use the 'that's what she said'-joke), and the two other guys, who I guess we should relate more to as audiences, (this would have been a good idea at least), are nevertheless also pretty idiotic. We don't get to know them, before they start arguing and fighting, and that continues pretty much throughout the film. It only lasts about 80 minutes, so there would have been plenty of room for at least 10-15 minutes of getting to know and like these characters, before they go clawing at each other. But no. None of that here.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale (2005)) plays the pizza delivery guy, the protagonist of the film, but I didn't relate to him at all. SPOILER: The most important part of this character's development is that he decides to confront his falling in love with his best friend's sister after they had sex at graduation 8 years prior, and now decides to go for her. What important procrastination had taken his attention off from this for 8 years is never delved into. - Delivering pizzas, it seems. Eisenberg gets annoying a few times here by being brainy and stupid at the same time. Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation (2009-2013)) plays his best friend, and he is unfortunately not as funny as could have been hoped. Danny McBride (Pineapple Express (2008)) and Nick Swardson (Bolt (2008)) are the giant idiots, and they are funny most of the time. There's a good many laughable lines in 30 Minutes, and together with the cast which do what they can, they save the poorly conceived film from total ruin. It ends very abruptly, confirming that it is a small, goofy, and somewhat confused potluck of a movie. It will appeal mostly to younger, male audiences.

Zombieland (2009) - Reese/Wernick and Fleischer hit the post-modern bull's eye with undead escapade

Watch a 3-minute clip from the movie here

Cost: 28 mil. $
Box office: 40.6 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.45 times its cost)

[30 Minutes or Less was released 11 August (Antilles and Aruba) and runs 83 minutes. Shooting took place from July - September 2010 in Michigan. The plot bears strong resemblance to the strange case of Brian Wells, a Pennsylvania pizza delivery guy who died from an explosive tied to his neck after robbing a bank in order to get funds to hire a hitman. The film opened #5, behind holdover hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes, fellow new releases The Help and Final Destination 5 and holdover hit The Smurfs, to a 13.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 37 mil. $ (91.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 1.3 mil. $ (3.2 %) and the UK with 872k $ (2.2 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Fleischer returned with Escape My Life (2012, TV-series) and theatrically with Gangster Squad (2013). Eisenberg returned in Why Stop Now? (2012); McBride in Good Vibes (2011, TV-series), The Roadie (2012, short) and theatrically in As I Lay Dying (2013). 30 Minutes or Less is rotten at 44 % with a 5.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 30 Minutes or Less?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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11/17/2013

30 Minutes or Less (2011) or, Idiots and Lesser Idiots

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