30 Minutes or Less

Didn’t the days of half-hour guarantees for pizza-delivery drivers disappear more than a decade ago? That makes the screenplay for 30 Minutes or Less either old or simply out of touch.

The action comedy is directed by Ruben Fleischer and stars Jesse Eisenberg, who teamed up for Zombieland, which was one of the freshest and most innovative comedies of 2009.

Such inspiration is sorely lacking this time around, in a cheap-looking caper comedy with dumb heroes and dumber criminals.

Eisenberg plays Nick, who is growing tired of his mundane job delivering pizzas when he becomes the unlikely target of a kidnapping plot. The bumbling crooks are Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), whose convoluted plan is to strap a bomb to Nick that will force him to rob a bank.

Then they will use the money to pay off an assassin (Michael Pena) they’ve hired to kill Dwayne’s overbearing father (Fred Ward), thereby giving Dwayne an inheritance full of lottery winnings. Oh, and they also want to open their own tanning salon, or something like that. But naturally, since these guys are total idiots, everything goes awry.

Meanwhile, Nick enlists the help of his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) in conceiving and executing the robbery, once the duo can put aside various personal differences.

That’s far more description than necessary for a plot that seems like the result of a bunch of random jokes and mildly amusing banter being thrown into a blender. The editing is choppy and the stylish visual flourishes from Zombieland are nowhere to be found in Fleischer’s sophomore effort.

Eisenberg (The Social Network) tries to bring dimension to his character, but is helpless amid all the stale low-brow gags and ill-conceived action sequences. He looks out of place following his work in smart character-driven comedies such as The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland.

The typically obnoxious McBride gets many of the biggest laughs in the film, which is not a good sign. As for Swardson and Ansari, they’ve each been funnier on television.

At least the pace is lively and the running time is short. If it was 30 minutes or less, that would have been even better.

Rated R, 83 minutes.