30 MINUTES OR LESS (USA 2011) **
Directed by Ruben Fleischer

30 MINUTES OR LESS or pizza is free.  That is where the film’s title comes from and also what trains pizza delivery boy, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) to drive very, very fast.

The rather ludicrous plot involves two goofballs, Dwayne (Danny McBride) and partner-inc-crime (Nick Swardson) needing 10 grand to hire an assassin (Michael Pena) to kill Dwayne’s dad (Fred Ward) so that he can inherit the rest of the lottery money that he had won some years back.  Dwayne decides to kidnap pizza boy, strap a bomb on his chest, forcing him to rob a bank in order to get the 10 grand.  Dwayne wishes to use the money to open a massage parlour delivering massages with happy endings.

Nick seeks help from his best friend or ex best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) depending on where about in the movie one is at.  Nick is also dating Chet’s sister, Katie (Dilshad Vadsaria).

Tough the story might seem silly, the comedic set ups may be terrific but the laughs are missing.  The bank robbery is an example of one that generates few laughs.  But director Fleischer’s (ZOMBIELAND) is all over the place and suffers from a weak narrative.  For a comedy, there are too many goofballs and no straight man.  The jokes come fast and furious but the miss and hit ratio is high.  Everyone seems to be shouting most of the time.
One figures that the title of the film implies Nick using his driving skills to help him get out of the difficult situation.  Wrong!  Driving only has a bit to do with the film.  No one is really funny in this movie except (surprisingly) for Fred Ward as Dwayne’s military father who will not give his son the light of day.

The climax involving a chaotic shoot-up/hostage exchange tends to be more violent than funny.  Also there is a scene with Eisenberg smoking a cigarette at the start of the film and henceforth nowhere else.

It seems that the filmmakers should sit down and decide what works and what doesn’t instead of having all the actors make a wild grab for laughs.  30 MINUTES OR LESS is hardly funny at all.