Since Bridesmaids, Bad Teacher, and Horrible Bosses are all fairly benign examples of the now-popular form of the raunchy, R-rated mainstream comedy, I was hoping to go all summer without having to bear witness to another scummy, mean-spirited blast of immature machismo on the order of The Hangover, the movie that brought box-office viability back to the restricted-rating laugh-fest even as it alienated those of us who demand more than hateful boys'-club hijinks from our comedies. But, alas, here comes 30 Minutes or Less (2011, Ruben Fleischer) (opening 8/12 nationwide), a profane lark wherein all the women onscreen are either strippers, cardboard love interests, helpless victims, or some combination thereof, and where there's nothing scarier for the central straight-male characters than the very existence of homosexuality.
However, while The Hangover and 30 Minutes or Less share the same ugly mindset, it would be unfair to the newer film to say it's precisely "on the order of" The Hangover. It doesn't come near that level of awfulness--thank goodness for small favors, right?--and it has a number of compensating pleasures, chief among them the presence of Parks and Recreation's very funny Aziz Ansari. With his tendency to erupt in buzzing, high-pitched fits and rants that contain enough sharp observations to ever come close to being annoying (his best bit here is an astute assessment of Netflix), Ansari raises the movie's hit-to-miss gag ratio to an adequate level.
Ansari also connects well with Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Nick, a burnt-out pizza-delivery boy more comfortable spending his nights swigging beers with teacher pal Chet (Ansari) than trying to strike up a real relationship with Chet's sister, Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), a former one-night-stand who Nick is secretly in love with.
One night, Nick unfortunately crosses paths with Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), two losers looking for a patsy to rob a bank, which would then provide Dwayne with enough money to hire a hitman to kill his father (Fred Ward, a strong presence reduced here to the duty of hurling homophobic slurs), a military veteran made rich by a lottery win. Dwayne and Travis decide that Nick is their patsy, so they strap Nick with a time-bomb vest that will detonate if he doesn't rob a bank within a matter of hours.
Nick enlists Chet's assistance, and the comic set piece in which they carry out the robbery does not disappoint--it escalates nicely as farce, and is one of the movie's highlights. The scene confirms that director Fleischer has some talent when it comes to funneling the cast's energy into tightly constructed bits of comic mayhem, but I wonder if Fleischer knows that not every film he takes on needs to be as slick and propulsive as a Mountain Dew commercial. His injection of a healthy amount of action into his only previous film, the superior Zombieland, made sense in that case because the survivors-vs.-zombies set-up warranted the gunfights. Here, though, all the blam-blam stuff, the flame-thrower explosions, and the car chases feel desperate and gratuitous, as if Fleischer didn't trust his comedy chops to carry the film. (His next film, inexplicably, will be a period gangster epic starring the impressive line-up of Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin. It seems Ward's character isn't the only lottery winner involved in 30 Minutes or Less.)
Eisenberg is fine, although unlike some who complain (unfairly) that "he always plays the same character," or some such garbage, I didn't need him to tamp down his natural wit, charm, and intelligence to play an underachieving douchebag; there's enough range within the gallery of articulate youngsters he has played as to render the question of whether he needs to "stretch" entirely moot. McBride's disgusting-cretin routine is growing on me; he's dependably funny, although if the anti-Eisenberg camp wants me to point to an actor who I feel does have a limited range, I will gladly offer McBride as Exhibit A. Swardson, who often just looks lost when he's required to react to a scene partner, is the weak link in the central quartet.
Still, three good performances out of the four main actors is nothing to scoff at when considering the juvenile material the cast has to work with. 30 Minutes or Less isn't a bad movie of its kind, but how much of an achievement is that when the kind of comedy it is inspires repulsion? Grade: C+
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