’30 Minutes or Less’ comes up a buck short

30 Minutes or Less, the new action-comedy from director Ruben Fleischer, comes in perfectly at 83 minutes. For a small film with a small plot and semi-annoying characters, the running time is just right. Any longer and this sub-par movie could have dragged on and on.

It’s not that 30 Minutes or Less is a bad movie; it just doesn’t go anywhere. The script by Michael Diliberti is funny and witty at times, but unfortunately much of the dialogue is overwritten. All of the characters in the film speak in that grating language that was popularized by Diablo Cody’s overrated Juno. It’s as if everyone is a stand-up comedian, ready for a quick retort and profanity-laced diatribe. They are vessels for jokes and pratfalls, and that’s about it.

Jesse Eisenberg, an Oscar nominee for The Social Network, plays Nick, a struggling pizza delivery man who needs to get his food orders to customers in 30 minutes or less otherwise the money comes from his paycheck. Nick’s best friend is Chet (Aziz Ansari), a ladies man who substitutes at the local school. The two are stuck in the post-college doldrums; they find themselves playing video games and drinking beer, not caring about their future.

Then we meet Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (a very funny Nick Swardson), two characters who are just like Nick and Chet, except they’re a little older. Dwayne and Travis waste day after day watching movies and playing video games. Their largest obstacle in life is convincing Dwayne’s father, nicknamed The Major (Fred Ward), to get off their case and let them live a meaningless life.

These degenerates are brought together when Dwayne and Travis decide to steal $100,000 from a local bank so they can pay someone to kill The Major (this glorious idea comes from a stripper named Juicy, played by Bianca Kajlich). But rather than taking matters into their own hands, they decide to call the local pizzeria and hold the delivery man at gunpoint. You guessed it: Nick is their target. Because Dwayne and Travis are too scared to rob the bank themselves, they strap a bomb to Nick’s chest and have him team up with Chet for the robbery. If he doesn’t go through with the plan, the bomb goes off.

The plot is inane and the characters are beyond ludicrous. I mean, rather than killing The Major themselves, they kidnap a guy, strap a bomb to his chest, force him to rob a bank, and then plan on taking the winnings to a hitman to complete the job. Hmmm … me thinks something will go wrong.

If you suspend any degree of common sense, there are some laughs in 30 Minutes or Less. McBride and Swardson earn most of them, and I enjoyed Michael Peña playing against type as the prospective hitman. Eisenberg and Asnari are where the movie falls apart. The dialogue between the two characters is painfully fake, and the actors say their lines as if there is a studio audience present. No one cares about Nick’s lusting for Chet’s twin sister. No one cares about how Chet broke up the marriage of Nick’s parents. These two are a level below Beavis and Butthead.

The movie wants to be a mini-Lethal Weapon, or even a mini-Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Unfortunately the script simply doesn’t allow any of the action or characters to be taken even an iota seriously. This film is simply a litany of jokes packaged into a movie. It’s never too difficult to sit through; after all, it’s only 83 minutes. But don’t expect much out of this small film with small ambitions.

• 30 Minutes or Less

• 2011

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Michael Diliberti; based on a story by Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan

• Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Asnari, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña and Fred Ward

• Running time: 83 minutes

• Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, nudity and some violence

• Rating:

• Click here to purchase 30 Minutes or Less on DVD.