If we take anything away from Danny McBride’s previous live-action film Your Highness, it’s that knowing what your cast is capable of goes a long way. Assuming what McBride does so well in Eastbound & Down (crude one-liners, in case you haven’t seen the show) would work in a medieval fantasy setting was one thing, but putting Natalie Portman’s serious acting persona in such a contrived setting was something else entirely.
Fortunately, McBride’s new film finds him working with a cast that is actually suited towards the genre it’s in — a comedy/action film homage. 30 Minutes Or Less finds him playing a loser living a dead-end life, a character similar to Eastbound’s Kenny Powers. His character, Dwayne, along with his friend Travis (Nick Swardson), devises an elaborate plan to gain his inheritance by kidnapping someone, strapping a bomb to their chest, and forcing them to hold up a bank for $100,000. The money would be used to pay a hit man (Michael Peña) to kill off Dwayne’s father (Fred Ward). The role of the bomb mule lands on hapless pizza deliveryman Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), who drags his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) into the pandemonium.
With this film, these four actors play their characters exactly how we expect them to play them with varying degrees of success. Eisenberg plays the nervous, love-struck, over-articulate 20-something male, a role that, by now, he could probably do with his arms and legs chopped off. It would be annoying to see this character yet again were he not paired with Ansari, who also finds a familiar persona in the manic friend who gets funnier with more situational anxiety.
30 Minutes Or Less is wise to give Ansari the majority of the one-liners that work, as his pitch-perfect delivery strengthens their wit. Unfortunately, the quips that fall flat are relegated to McBride, which is a shame because his entire persona is solely based on the funny one-liner. Take that away from him, and he’s an unsympathetic villain. Perhaps that’s the writer’s intent, but it’s a suit that McBride does not wear well. As for Swardson’s ability to play a villainous sidekick, “competent” is the first and only adjective that comes to mind.
With the bulk of the laughs resting on Ansari’s performance, 30 Minutes Or Less gains extra mileage from its premise. While Your Highness was packed with failed one-liners that emphasized its script’s weaknesses, 30 Minutes Or Less gets by with a solid premise. The film doesn’t use its cast to the best of their abilities, but it makes up for it in other ways. When the one-liners slow down, the guns and explosions take their place to keep the pace up. It may not be a wall-to-wall laugh riot, but 30 Minutes Or Less is enjoyable throughout.
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