Posts
2011, 08-04:
Review of film: “30 MINUTES OR LESS”
In 2009, director RUBEN FLEISCHER made a quirky movie named “ZOMBIELAND”, with impressive performances by WOODY HARRELSON & JESSE EISENBERG (before he got to be really “famous” for his starring role in “THE SOCIAL NETWORK”)...
... This new movie from Ruben starts out with a guy named Nick (JESSE EISENBERG) driving crazily thru town in his beat-up Ford, taking great risks to get somewhere quickly...
... It turns out he’s a pizza delivery man, for a store that promises deliveries in “30 Minutes Or Less”, or else the customer gets the pizza for FREE. Jesse’s driving wildly because, if he’s late, the cost comes out of HIS salary (per his “slave-driver” boss guy)...
... The customer he’d driven to had purposely called Jesse’s store feeling that they COULDN’T get the food their place in 30 minutes, so they’d get it for nothing. Jesse’s clever in how he “HANDLES” the planned rip-off...
... Jesse’s best friend, Chet (AZIZ ANSARI), had been his friend for YEARS, & now is a teacher in a middle school. The 2 guys have very “RAUNCHY” sex-based conversations with each other...
... Aziz doesn’t like it when Jesse at one point reveals he’d gone to bed with Aziz’s twin SISTER, Kate (DILSHAD VADSARIA)... Jesse doesn’t make clear it was years before, & is peeved at Aziz’s unfriendly words to him. So, they part with both in a “SNIT”...
... Meanwhile, a “slacker” guy named Dwayne (DANNY McBRIDE) is upset that he’s being “ragged” on by his father, “The Major” (FRED WARD), who’d won a large lottery prize but didn’t care to give much of it for DANNY’S use...
... Danny complains to his neer-do-well friend, Travis (NICK SWARDSON), about how “badly” his father TREATS him...
... Danny tells Nick how he’d like to be “RID” of Fred, so he could inherit his MONEY & follow-thru with his plan to open a TANNING salon that’d also be a “front” for offering SEXUAL “favors” from women employees, & which he & Nick could run to get even richer...
... Danny’s girlfriend said she knows how to hire a “HIT-MAN” to “off” his father-- but it’d take like $ 100,000 to hire him... Danny & Nick try to come up with a plan to GET the money for the hit-man as a start on building their “tanning” future...
... Nick’s good at BLOWING-UP things, & he agrees to Danny’s idea to devise a plan to get some 3rd party to rob a BANK to get them the MONEY they need for the planned “hit” job...
... Seeing a TV commercial by Jesse’s pizza store boss gives them an idea of HOW they could get the “3rd party” needed to rob the bank...
... Thus, they go to deserted buildings at a sort of QUARRY stone-crushing operation, & use a cell to call for JESSE to deliver them a pizza (which, naturally, arrives late)... Danny & Nick dress up in gorilla outfits so Jesse can’t “IDENTIFY” them, & they forcibly “capture” & tie him up...
... Jesse is, naturally, deeply frightened by the whole event, & even more so when they strap a timer-controlled unremovable VEST with an attached BOMB to him...
... They give him the instructions of what BANK he’s to rob for the $ 100,000 they demand, after which he’s to call them on a certain cell phone #, & then they’ll remove the vest once he turns over the MONEY to them...
... Jesse is deeply “weirded out” by the whole event, & drives off to talk to the one person he feels he can “trust”, namely, AZIZ...
... Aziz is teaching at school, & is still very “peeved” at Jesse over his previous comments about his SISTER. So, he’s displeased at how Jesse had called him out of his classroom into the HALL...
... Aziz makes FUN of the ridiculous story Jesse gives him about what’d “happened” to him-- until Jesse suddenly opens up his jacket & Aziz sees the BOMB vest strapped onto Jesse...
... Reluctantly, Aziz feels friendship is more important that an argument between them, & tries to come up with a “SOLUTION” to Jesse’s problem...
... Aziz has a naturally DEPRECATING way of expressing himself, & uses that as he tries to get the vest OFF Jesse & finds that he’d have to remove Jesse’s ARMS to accomplish what they were trying to do...
... Reluctantly, the 2 friends decide they’ll just “have” to find a way to ROB the bank in question... Aziz is his usual “black comedy” self in trying to plan things, such as painting plastic GUNS & the like, “singing” as he works on the project...
... At one point, Jesse & Aziz decide it’d be best to use some “3rd party” stolen CAR to try to effect their bank robbery. But, typical of this “everything-seems-to-go-WRONG” comedy / thriller, things do NOT go according to “plan”...
... Jesse & Aziz eventually go INTO the bank, & encounter a series of PROBLEMS there, from poor planning to uncooperative people to exploding packets of money they were given...
... Jesse finds a way to use his BOMB-VEST to help with their getaway, & then they try to contact Danny by phone...
... But, an unexpected “”WRINKLE” enters into the picture, when the planned hitman named Chango (MICHAEL PEÑA) suddenly arrives in town. He chances to meet Jesse & Aziz, in effect mistaking them for the people who were HIRING him...
... Disagreements arise, & Jesse & Aziz get the stolen money BACK after Michael takes it from them, & they try to CONTACT Danny as Michael is angrily going “AFTER” Danny also (for the confusion over his being hired)...
... So, you have MUTUAL conflicts going on, with a good deal of VIOLENCE rearing it’s ugly (yet “expected”) head!...
... Will Jesse & Aziz find a way of DISARMING the bomb-vest WITHOUT having to turn over the money they’d stolen to Danny?...
... Will Danny’s plan to kidnap Aziz’s sister DILSHAD succeed, or do any good as an additional lever to “force” Jesse to bring him the MONEY he wants (& “needs”) for increasingly-angry hit-man MICHAEL?...
... How will things “TURN-OUT” for all the major players in this scenario?!...
... This movie might look “silly” from its oft-repeated TV ads... But, it’s MEANT to be that way, &, rather than being anything “stupid”, it’s actually CLEVER in the ways it moves-around the “chess-pieces” of its highly “individualized” characters...
... Yes, the characters are often a bit “NUTTY”-- but I’ve “KNOWN” somewhat “screwy” people a bit like some in the film, & the set-up makes them “FIT” into the story-line...
... It’s FINE work by Jesse & Danny & especially “deadpan” AZIZ that makes what initially appears “weird” really “WORK” in moving the plot “forward”...
... It’s not an “easy” movie to succeed with, but I feel director Fleischer has ACCOMPLISHED that. It’s frequently funny (in an eccentric way), I got a “KICK” out of it, & thus I’m rating it at 8.0 out of 10 stars.
(... By the way: as has become a bit “de rigeuer” in a number of recent films, there’s an added scene AFTER the Credits [which only a tiny fraction of the viewers saw as I did]. It’s a FUNNY segment showing a sort of “POSTCRIPT” concerning 3 main characters, involving Danny’s idea for a TANNING shop... You’d be wise to STAY for it!... )
[ NOTE: You can easily SHARE this Posting with your friends or family by sending them an e-mail LINK via clicking on the “M” button in the lower left-hand corner... ]
(o_
/\
/\
= = = [ 4 B&W I&D ] … ( <> ^ <> ) ...
* - - - - - - - - - *
FB: THE VOICE OF SILENCE
That's fantastic!!
ReplyDeleteis there any process so that i will be able to download 30 minutes or less movie?
ReplyDelete