Slacker thrills galore on 30 Minutes or Less

When the going gets tough, the slackers get armed with fake guns. On 30 Minutes or Less we are taken on an interracial buddy movie that’s as fast-paced as a delivery guy trying to beat that half hour time quota. And that’s exactly what this movie is: the life of a pizza boy gone terribly awry. In the opening scene we see Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) handling his Vito’s Pizza delivery car like a bat out of hell. He runs stoplights, cuts through traffic and, once, almost snags a mini-van backing up. On his dashboard is a timer that counts down the remaining minutes. Despite all the hazardous driving, he arrives late and, back at the office, gets reprimanded by his boss for yet another failed mission. The pizza is coming out of his paycheck. Again. Nick's best friend and housemate is Chet (Aziz Ansari), a straight-laced East Indian school teacher. Chet discovers that Nick has slept with, and is still dating, Chet's twin sister Katie (Dilshad Vadsaria). After a long dispute filled with much awkward tackling, sissy fighting, and Chet screaming “Dude, you slept with my twin sister!" the two end their friendship. Its foot firmly on the accelerator and in the vein of such movies as Dude, Where’s My Car? and, perhaps more aptly, Harold and Kumar, this movie makes no bones about its slapstick thrust. And boy, is it worth the popcorn. The wrench in the whole plot are two redneck delinquents, Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), who hatch a plan to get rid of Dwayne’s domineering father and acquire the millions that his dad won via lottery. Their brilliant plan to raise money for an assassin who will get rid of Dwayne’s dad: kidnap Nick when he makes a delivery and force him to rob a bank by strapping a bomb vest on him. They set the timer at 10 hours. How’s that for incentive?

“Nick is a pizza delivery guy who dropped out of college a few years back and now feels a bit stuck," says Eisenberg in the production liner notes. “It takes a bomb getting strapped on him to light a fire under him, so to speak." With no one else to turn to, Nick is forced to beg his now ex-best friend for help. It’s a literally explosive premise as Nick and Chet try to foil the plans of their two tormentors who are drunk on too many ‘80s action movies. Jesse Eisenberg, best known for his Oscar-nominated role as Mark Zuckerberg in Social Network, is a walking and talking picture of slacker perfection while Aziz Ansari, though overwrought and sometimes acting pell-mell for a cinema effort, pulls off the panicky square in contrast to Nick’s fish out of water. The clichés are all here but they’re reworked with more than decent freshness: a stripper named Juici, her assassin boyfriend, the stupid criminal mastermind wannabe, the even more stupid criminal sidekick, the non-white straight-laced buddy, guns, bombs and the obligatory car chase, and of course, the love interest. Speaking of the love interest, Dilshad Vadsaria playing Katie is loveable as the hot girl next door. Plus, her Portuguese-Indian exotic looks fits right in with the movie’s United Colors of Benetton running theme. The twists and turns, albeit the staple of many a slacker movie, are as ripe for situational comedy as can be. Nick and Chet arm themselves with fake plastic guns, paint them black to make them look real, and strap on their guts to actually go rob a bank. Surprisingly great in his supporting role is Michael Pena as Chango, the Latin gun for hire who gets embroiled in the plot to kill Dwayne’s father. His stoner meets player meets gangsta swagger comes off as genuinely witty. We were bowled over by one scene that had Chango getting shot with a pen gun and, as he disinfects the wound with alcohol, chanting “You’re a pimp" over and over while trying to keep a straight, gangland hard face but failing miserably when fluids meet the open wound, when he finally bawls like a little boy. This kind of slapstick and action is as good as it gets, but don’t expect grand reworkings of the genre as in director Ruben Fleischer’s acclaimed Zombieland. There’s nothing here but a classic romp through slacker-ville that’s best with beer and pizza and your buddies on chillax mode. – YA, GMA News 30 Minutes or Less is rated R-18 without cuts and opens Oct 26 at all major cinemas. Photos courtesy of COLUMBIA PICTURES