30 Minutes or Less

High hopes spilled from this reunion of Zombieland director and star, Ruben Fleischer and Jesse Eisenberg, but the result is a comedy crime caper centred on a clichéd slacker protagonist that's as laboured and ungainly as the walking corpses in Fleischer's zippy living dead debut. All round unlikeable guy Nick (Eisenberg) is a small town pizza delivery boy who gets some unwanted excitement in his tedious existence when he's ambushed on the job by two dunderhead criminals, Dwayne and Travis (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson), who strap a bomb to his torso and tell him to rob a bank. The why: to get their hands on some fast cash so they can hire a hit-man to whack Dwayne's millionaire ex-marine father (Fred Ward). Exactly.

Naturally Nick, instead of going to the police, enlists the help of his reformed slacker buddy Chet (Aziz Ansari) to be his crime spree accomplice in this slight (83 mins) and underwhelming farce. Razor sharp editing keeps an extremely tight pace, but the wasted, non-rhythmic R-rated dialogue and an ensemble cast of morons leaves no-one to root for. If Eisenberg owed his former Zombieland director a favour, consider it repaid. [Thom Atkinson]