30 MINUTES OR LESS

Written by Michael Diliberti

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Anzari, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson

Dwayne: Sometimes fate brings out it's big, old c@#k and smacks you right in the face with it.

I’ve decided that, in the spirit of the title of this film, I’m going to dedicate no more than 30 minutes to writing this review. In actuality though, my decision has very little to do with the title. I don’t want to dedicate any more time than this to Ruben Fleischer’s (ZOMBIELAND) second film because 30 MINUTES OR LESS plays out like he didn’t spend any more time than that on it either.

First of all, the title itself has nothing to do with this movie. Nick (Jesse Eisenberg, looking particularly pale) is a pizza delivery man-child who never meets his “30 minutes or it’s free” guarantee. He gets jumped by a couple of wannabe thugs (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) in ape masks and when he wakes up, he has a bomb strapped to his chest. He must then rob a bank and bring back $100 grand to them so that they can in turn pay a hitman (Michael Pena) to kill one of the thug’s controlling father (Fred Ward). You would think he would have all of 30 minutes to accomplish this task but really he has 10 hours. The suspense is pretty much cut out of this picture right there.

Nick is joined by his reluctant best friend, Chet (Aziz Ansari) and they get to work through their growing pains together while they bond in this experience. The cast is solid – Ansari’s deadpan delivery is always brilliant and McBride redeems himself to me after his disastrous turn in YOUR HIGHNESS – but their random moments of mild hilarity are not enough to make up for how paper thin and half-assed this film truly is. Essentially, 30 MINUTES OR LESS will be forgotten just as quickly.

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YOUR HIGHNESS

Written by Danny McBride and Ben Best

Directed by David Gordon Green

Starring Danny McBride, James Franco, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Theroux

and Natalie Portman

Isabel: It is my legacy to do anything to stop those who fuck to make dragons.

I don’t know about you but if I am going to get high, it’s because I want to laugh and have a good time. Apparently, when Danny McBride wants to get high, he would rather be painfully unfunny instead, and then drag all of the good people who spent their hard-earned pot money on a ticket to his new movie, YOUR HIGHNESS, down with him into his own personal hell of a bad trip. Not since Harold and Kumar got their dumb asses stuck in a certain detention facility have I had such a sobering experience at a stoner movie.

I spent most of YOUR HIGHNESS with my mouth wide open in stupefied awe of what I was watching. Wait. Was that a mechanical bird I just saw in this medieval setting? Hold on a second. Is James Franco masturbating that strangely unconvincing, Yoda-like alien creature? Uh, is that a minotaur’s penis I see and is it erect? Between all this nonsense and the broken “Ye Olde English” mixed with random cuss word diaglogue, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. And I was sober! Imagine the poor folks who actually prepared ahead of time to see this movie the way it was intended to be seen. In their impaired state, how could they possibly make sense of this insanity? And if you thought James Franco was bad at the Oscars, wait until you hear him sing.

Somewhere behind all the smoke, there is something resembling a plot in YOUR HIGHNESS. Whiny younger prince, Thadeus (McBride), lives in the shadow of older brother, Fabius (Franco). Together, they embark on a quest to stop some wizard type (Justin Theroux) from impregnating Fabius’s new virginal love (Zooey Deschanel) with a dragon baby. That’s right; I said dragon baby. Natalie Portman shows up half way through to kick some random monsters but doesn’t serve much other purpose. (She probably only did 5% of the ass-kicking anyway.) Aside from that though, it is pretty much one completely pointless scene after another, featuring a talented cast making complete boobs of themselves. (Seriously – Toby Jones: Why would you sign on to make yourself look this bad?)

Speaking of boobs, I imagine that McBride and his writing partner, Ben Best, basically inhaled as much ganja as they could before whipping out their penises, dipping them in ink, and sitting down to write YOUR HIGHNESS with them. How else could they possibly explain the total lack of reality in this film (even by fantasy standards) and the disturbing and obsessive manner in which every joke seems to lead back to McBride’s crotch? (Ladies, you have been warned – this movie is especially not for you.) YOUR HIGHNESS might have seemed like a hilarious idea high in McBride’s basement, maybe even genius by their altered standards, but on screen, the buzz is long gone before the credits are even done.

Oh, and David Gordon Green might want to try some actual direction next time.

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