Ruben Fleischer's latest film, 2011's 30 Minutes Or Less, follows the exploits of a pizza delivery guy named Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a thirtysomething slacker who lives with his roommate and best friend, Chet (Aziz Ansari), substitute teacher who is not above having a beer or playing video games with his pal. One night their relationship suffers a bit when Nick confesses to sleeping with Chet's foxy sister, Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria) and Chet tells Nick that he knew all along his mom was banging the lifeguard but never bothered to tell him. They scuffle, but the next morning both of them head off to work and it's while he's delivering a pizza that Nick runs into real trouble in the form of Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson). See, Dwayne and Travis need to come up with a hundred grand so that they can pay an assassin (Michael Peña) hired by Dwayne's favorite stripper (Bianca Kajlich) to knock off Dwayne's old man (Fred Phelps). Turns out Dwayne's daddy won the lottery and his only son intends to have him killed before he can spend it all so that he'll be able to use his inheritance to open up his dream business, a tanning salon that's actually a front for a prostitution racket.

But let's get back to Nick - out on delivery and soon at gun point! Dwayne and Travis call for a pie and when poor Nick shows up, they slap a bomb vest on him and tell him he's got to get them the money within ten hours or they're going to blow him up. Figuring that the best way to do this would be to rob a bank, Nick drives his beat up old 80s model Mustang to the local elementary school to talk Chet into helping him do just that, before time runs out and Nick blows up.

30 Minutes Or Less is a fun movie on a surface level. It's not chock full of surprises, it's not full of deep meaning and it won't make you think for more than a second or two but it does manage to entertain for eighty-eight minutes in spite of the fact that it's vapid and predictable. The main reason the movie is as watchable as it is, well, that'd be Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as the bad guys. They seem to be having a good time playing these inept schemers, constantly put down by Dwayne's dad, well played by veteran actor Fred Phelps, and while they don't really flesh out their characters at all, they don't really need to either. Eisenberg and Ansari have a pretty decent on screen relationship here as well, and they make for likeable enough, if completely unlikely 'heroes' (albeit not in the traditional sense). Both duos play off of one another rather well and it's occasionally interesting to note the parallels in their relationships - but let's not read too much into this.

The film has some decent action scenes in it, though not surprisingly they're played for laughs more than for thrills and a few references to action movies that were obviously an influence in some way - such as Die Hard, the Lethal Weapon films and most importantly the mighty Point Break, which Nick and Chet use as their blueprint for how to successfully pull off a bank robbery. The love interest angle that exists between Nick and Kate doesn't really add up to much and feels kind of crammed into the story, but overall this movie delivers pretty much all that you'd want out of it: some good laughs, a few decent action scenes, a couple of memorable quotes, a couple of pretty girls, a surprisingly surly Fred Phelps and best of all a dopey guy brandishing a flamethrower.

The Blu-ray:

Video:

30 Minutes Or Less looks great in this AVC encoded 2.40.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer from Sony. Detail is crisp and sharp throughout and skin tones are nice and natural through. Colors are handled well as are black levels and there are no problems with crush, those blacks stay inky deep throughout the film. There are no problems with edge enhancement, mpeg compression artifacts or nasty noise reduction and overall the image is very pleasing in terms of detail and texture and offers up a very solid picture overall. Close up shots are reference quality, showing great facial detail and texture in clothing and on hair, while medium and long distance shots show off the grit and grime in the various locations used throughout the movie. There are no problems with print damage dirt and debris and what we wind up with is a very strong transfer in deed.