From left to right: Chet, Nick, Dwayne, and Travis.
30 Minutes or Less is an action-Black Comedy, starring Jesse Eisenberg (Nick Davis), Aziz Ansari (Chet Flanning), Danny McBride (Dwayne Mikowlski), and Nick Swardson (Travis Cord), Dilshad Vadsaria (Kate Flanning), Michael Peña (Chango), Bianca Kajlich (Juicy) and directed by Ruben Fleischer, who also did Zombieland.
Two slackers named Dwayne and Travis want to make a hundred thousand dollars quickly so they can hire an assassin to kill Dwayne's father, the Major, and get his inheritance money. Eventually, they come up with a sensible idea: order a pizza, have it delivered, kidnap the pizza man, strap a bomb to his chest, and force him to rob a bank or the bomb will detonate. The unfortunate delivery man, Nick, teams up with his best friend Chet, whom he recently had a falling out with when he confessed that he had slept with Chet's sister, to get the job done.
The plot resembles the Real Life story of Brian Wells
, who was killed when the bomb was detonated. However, the producers deny having prior knowledge of this incident.
List of tropes that appear in 30 Minutes or Less:
- 30 Minutes, or It's Free!: The customers at Vito's Pizza love to abuse this trope. Unfortunately for Nick, customers tend to abuse this policy from calling from places that make such a time-frame nearly impossible. Though he does manage to sucker younger customers into giving him the money anyway.
- Actor Allusion: Nick, Jesse Eisenberg's character, saying that he doesn't go on Facebook. Columbus, Jesse Eisenberg's character in Zombieland made a similar comment, saying he was glad the Zombie Apocalypse helped kill social networking.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Dwayne lets Nick drive off with the money in order to make sure Travis is okay after his flamethrower explodes.
- Bank Robbery: What Dwayne and Travis force Nick to do.
- Basement-Dweller: Dwayne still lives in his father's estate, watching TV and goofing around instead of doing anything productive. His father even calls him out on this.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: In the form of a gag Chet does about Netflix. Retroactively, since the movie became available on the service more than nine years after its release.
- Black Comedy: Most of the movie runs on it.
- Blatant Lies: Dwayne to a pedestrian after the car chase: "Good. I hope they catch them."
- Brick Joke:
- Early on, Travis makes a terrible attempt at a "That's what she said" joke when he and Dwayne are cleaning The Major's pool. Near the end, Travis makes a successful one right before he presumably succumbs to his injuries.
- Nick and Chet pretend to be Hispanic to pull off their robbery. Not too long later, the news broadcast covering the robbery refers to them as Hispanic.
- Bank teller Sandra slips a dye pack into the first bag of money she retrieves for Nick and Chet. When it goes off in a customer's face, they force her to fill a second bag. Turns out she slipped a dye pack into that bag too.
- Butt-Monkey: The hostage who gets accidentally shot in the leg during the bank robbery... and then has a dye pack explode in his face when Nick offers him some of the money as compensation.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Early on, Nick mentions a new laser pointer he bought Chet. During the climax, Chet uses it to trick Dwayne and Travis into thinking Nick's got a sniper backing him up so that they can escape.
- Kate mentions early on that she lives very close to the pizza place Nick works at. Later, Nick takes advantage of the short distance to sneak off to talk to her while Chet thinks he's in the restaurant.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Many characters, but Dwayne in particular.
- Drives Like Crazy: Nick when attempting to beat the 30-minute timer while delivering pizzas.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- While the money ends up being booby-trapped (or at least only part of it if the extended ending is taken into account), Nick and Chet get out alive and Nick confessed his love to Kate.
- The post credits scene shows that Dwayne, Travis, and the Major survived and started their own successful tanning salon business.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Dwayne's dad is called Jerry, but everyone calls him "The Major".
- Everyone Has Standards: Chet is a Jerkass who doesn't seem to care about his students whatsoever. Nevertheless, he's still quite appalled at Nick carrying a bomb on school grounds.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Travis has one of these, which he uses against Chongo in the climax.
- Good All Along: After Chongo decides to kill Dwayne, he breaks into his house and runs into The Major. The Major refuses to tell Chongo where his son is, even after being told Chongo was hired by Dwayne to kill him. The Major's pretty much just your basic, fed-up-dad-with-layabout-son type of character, he's just more mean about it because he's a retired Marine.
- Hate Sink: Christopher, the "Pizza Boss", is Nick Davis’s greedy and both emotionally and verbally abusive employer at Vito’s Pizza. When Nick is about to end his shift, Christopher makes him deliver the last minute order (that will inadvertently end up getting Nick the bomb strapped to his chest) by also threatening to take it out of his paycheck if he’s late doing so. In a deleted scene that would’ve happened earlier, Christopher also fires Nick for tricking customers into paying him despite being late (which Nick points out it’s an unrealistic gimmick anyway) and then guilts Nick into staying only to begin degrading and berating him again until Nick eventually does quit and tell him off later on.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Travis is a bit smarter than Dwayne. While Dwayne can "think like a millionaire", Travis is the one who comes up with the bomb idea, reconnaissance, and kidnapping Kate.
- Indy Ploy: They have ten hours before the bomb goes off, but that's still a pretty small amount of time Chet and Nick have to come up with a way to rob a bank. Which they successfully pull off.
- Inseries Nickname: Chongo calls himself "The Satanic Hispanic."
- Jerkass:
- Chongo, Juicy, The Major, Nick at first, and especially Dwayne.
- Chet is also shown to deal with his students in pointlessly cruel ways, humiliating one of them on a personal level just for texting in class. On the other hand, this is Truth in Television for many teachers. They'll read the note out loud in order to embarrass a student into not doing it again.
- Pizza Boss Christopher is shown to be this given his verbal and emotional manipulation of Nick.
- Karma Houdini:
- Dwayne and Travis don't get the money, but they survive their injuries, and even manage to open up their tanning salon/prostitution ring.
- Nick and Chet get away with robbing a bank. Well they don't get caught or identified but they ended up with only an ink bag... which will likely get them busted and with the bomb destroyed they have little evidence proving they were coerced, but they still got away scot free for stealing their neighbors car and trashing it.
- If taken as canon a
Deleted Scene (one that also explains how Dwayne opened the salon) shows that Nick, Chet and Kate did get away with most of the money and the boys are living in a fancy hotel while Kate takes her position at the Four Seasons. - Juicy, who came up with the idea of murdering The Major in the first place and who actually does try and kill Chet and Nick also gets away scot free and without even the severe injuries the other surviving bad guys end up with.
- Kill It with Fire: Chongo's demise.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: The Major. Post credits reveal he survived, though he's in a wheelchair.
- LOL69: The password to shut down the bomb vest is '69-69-69'. Dwayne defends it by saying it's his favorite sex position.
- Manchild: Chet calls Nick this. Played straight with Dwayne.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Travis isn't comfortable with the idea of killing The Major, or of people actually getting hurt in their attempt to get the money. On the other hand, he doesn't hesitate to kill Chongo, albeit in self-defense.
- Ms. Fanservice: Juicy; we see her breasts early on, and she's only made significant to the plot by virtue contacting Chongo, who also seems to be an ex of hers. Otherwise, she only exists for titillation.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Chet's feelings about Nick dating his sister Kate. It doesn't stop Nick from confessing his love to her or kissing her towards the end.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: "You just brought a gun to a bomb fight, officer!"
- No Indoor Voice: Dwayne tends to yell quite a lot. Given that he's played by Danny McBride, it's rather expected.
- Product Placement:
- Nissan must have paid a lot of money to show off that nicely restored Datsun.
- Also Arby's and 5-Hour Energy drinks. A small bit of McDonald's too with the drink cup Dwayne holds early on.
- All laptops seem to be Sony Vaio.
- Race Against the Clock: Nick is given 10 hours to rob a bank for Dwayne and Travis, or else he gets blown up by the bomb strapped to him.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Chet is the Red Oni (rather short-tempered and impatient) to Nick's Blue Oni (mostly calm and soft-spoken). Ironically, in several scenes, Nick wears a red shirt while Chet wears blue striped button shirts.
- Similarly, Dwayne is the Red Oni (a borderline Ax-Crazy hot-head with No Indoor Voice) to Travis' Blue Oni (rational and has a conscience).
- Reliably Unreliable Guns: The bank guard's revolver goes off after being slid across the floor, wounding a hostage.
- Sadist Teacher: Chet may be this; he outed a boy who was texting during class and mentioning his crush who was there while doing so.
- Say My Name: "SAAAAAAAAAAAANDRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Travis is a rather timid Minion with an F in Evil while Dwayne often acts tough and is very loud.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story:
- The money that all of the characters had been fighting for during the entire length of the film was rendered useless the moment it was taken out of the bank due to a hidden dye bomb. However, nobody figures this out until they actually open the case at the end of the film.
- If taken as canon, a deleted scene shows that Nick, Chet, and Kate did get away with most of the money and the boys are living in a fancy hotel while Kate takes her position at the Four Seasons.
- Spiteful Spit: Dwayne to The Major's new truck.
- The Stinger: Dwayne, Travis and The Major all survived their injuries and started a tanning salon/prostitution ring together. Dwayne also got Juicy.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Nick and Chet pretending to be Hispanic for the robbery.
- Strapped to a Bomb: Plot being... well, being strapped to a bomb. And then being ordered to rob a bank or else be allowed to explode.
- Threat Backfire: The reason why Dwayne and Travis decide to kidnap Kate. Once they call Nick to tell him where to go drop the money, Nick is so fed up from all he's had to endure during the day (and is pretty sure that they won't give him the disarm code) that he tells them where to shove it.Nick? If I die, I die, but at least I die rich, asshole! [ends call]
- Token Good Teammate: Kate is shown to be the only character with a strong moral compass (at least compared to the others).
- Too Dumb to Live: Dwayne, who constantly makes decisions that put his and others' lives in danger.
- Trailers Always Spoil: One of the TV Spots includes Nick trying to tell Dwayne to pull over because the bomb's in his van, before it explodes.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Both protagonists are selfish jerks who commit theft and robbery, only caring about the consequences enough to want to avoid them.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Chet and Nick give this to each other multiple times, with Chet angry about Nick sleeping with his sister and Nick angry about Chet telling someone about Nick's mom having an affair, which led to word of it spreading around and leading to Nick's parents splitting up.
- Travis later gives this to Dwayne, while changing the codes on the remote detonator, after Dwayne plans on cutting his losses and blowing Nick up.
- World of Jerkass: Almost everyone is a complete Jerkass willing to break the law. The only one with a clear conscience is Kate.
