30 Minutes or Less

After shedding his Mark Zuckerburg face, Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza boy Nick who gets kidnapped by two men and is forced to rob a bank for them after he is strapped to a vest bomb.  Nick turns to his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) to help him remove the vest, rob the bank and save the love of his life Kate (who incidentally is also Chet's sister).  

The film moves fairly quickly and almost like a farce as we watch Nick and Chet fight and make up because of the bomb, using almost childlike wit and silliness to find a means to the end. While there are a few laughs, we simply are not invested in this film where the villains Dwayne and Travis are so childlike themselves, plotting to kill Dwayne's father for his fortune by having Nick rob a bank so they could pay an assassin to take out his father.

The seriousness of someone strapped to a vest bomb and being forced to act against their will is sadly misused in this comedy as we've all seen the dangers in dramas and tension ridden pieces. Not something we want to laugh about despite the antics of trying to get it off and the characters involved themselves.

2.5/5