30 Minutes or Less

When I first saw Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland I kept thinking that he was like a dollar store version of Michael Sera. Kind of like Skeet Ulrich was a dollar store Johnny Depp and Justin Timberlake is a penny candy version of Vanilla Ice... Jesse and Justin were in that Facebook movie, The Social Network. Both were okay.

Eisenberg, though he plays similar characters in his films - nerdy, awkward - he's likeable. Fred Ward is a cool, hard-ass mo-fo and who didn't love Michael Pena in Crash? Pena, despite the type-casting he sometimes gets, is smart and believable.

So do I wish 30 minutes or less running-time was 30 minutes or less?

The story is pretty thin. In the trailer, Jesse, wrapped in explosives a-la suicide bomber, walks into a school to get his friend. His friend comments "you walk into a school full of kids wrapped in dynamite..." funny at first, and then pretty tasteless.

For some reason it made me think of teen versions of bad movies like Big Trouble and Bandits. Not bad films but the usual "strange things happen to ordinary people, they rise to the challenge and their lives are better after suffering the adversity."

The theme is relevant. It holds true for many... you know, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger..." That said, if we were to face movie adversity (action packed with criminals and guns) in the real world 99 times out of 100, the ordinary person becomes a casualty. 

Sad, because we all want to face adversity and come out the hero. So, as with most movies, must apply the old suspension of disbelief...

Sitting around with friends do you ever ask, "If you had to, would you ever....?"  You know, like if you had to rob a bank to save your family?  Or would you kill one person to save one hundred people? Or would you let your spouse sleep with someone for $1 million?   All movie themes.  But I digress.

I think 30 Minutes or Less will be mildly entertaining, if nothing else.  I'll see it at the Rainbow.