30 Minutes or Less (Blu-ray) (2011) |
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30 Minutes or Less (Blu-ray) (2011) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action Comedy |
Audio Commentary-P-I-P Commentary with Actors and Director Featurette-Behind The Scenes-x 2 Deleted Scenes Outtakes Trailer-Only for Blu-ray, not the film More…-BD-Live |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2011 | ||
| Running Time | 83:03 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Ruben Fleischer |
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Studio
Distributor |
SONY Pictures Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Jesse Eisenberg Danny McBride Aziz Ansari Nick Swardson Dilshad Vadsaria Michael Peńa |
| Case | Standard Blu-ray | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | Ludwig Goransson |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Italian DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 1080p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired Danish Finnish Hindi Italian Norwegian Swedish |
Smoking | Yes, minor |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, sequence after end credits | ||
Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is a going nowhere pizza delivery driver working for a business that advertises pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, or it’s free. He has fallen out with his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) because Chet has made something of himself, becoming a teacher, and disapproves of slacker Nick being in love with Chet’s twin sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria). Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson) are two dim witted criminals. Dwayne’s tough ex-Marine Corps father (Fred Ward) has won $10 million in the lottery which he is happily spending, so Dwayne decides to hire hitman Chango (Michael Pena) to kill his father so he can inherit what is left. The catch is that Dwayne needs $100,000 up front to pay Chango.
Travis has a talent with explosives, which the pair test on melons giving them an idea on how to get the money Dwayne needs. They order a pizza and abduct the driver, which of course is Nick. They strap a bomb to Nick’s chest and tell him that he has 10 hours to get them $100,000 by robbing a bank or they will set off the bomb. Nick enlists a reluctant Chet to help and they prepare a plan based on what they have seen in films. While the robbery does not go quite to plan, they still manage to escape with the money. But from there things get confused as Chango arrives on the scene and Kate is kidnapped by Dwayne. Can Nick turn the tables on Dwayne, escape Chango and rescue the girl of his dreams without being blown to pieces. Time is running out.
Director Ruben Fleischer had previously made a good fist of Zombieland (which also starred Jesse Eisenberg) and if 30 Minutes or Less is not up to that standard it is still a loud, frenetic comedy that has its moments. The film is helped by some decent performances, with Eisenberg (The Social Network(2010)) and Danny McBride perhaps the best. There is nothing subtle about the film but some of the dialogue is very funny, the bank robbery a hoot, the car crashes loud and noisy and the climax featuring a flame thrower nicely done. Loud rock and punk music by bands such as The Hives and Beastie Boys is an ever-present and at just over 80 minutes the film seldom pauses for breath.
Throw together some action and a car chase, loud music, a bit of nudity, some foul language, some reasonable actors and some funny moments and you get 30 Minutes or Less. It will not set the world on fire, but it is a reasonably diverting way to spend 80 minutes without thinking too much.
30 Minutes or Less is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, the original aspect ratio being 2.35:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.
Shot on film, not digital, the print is crisp and nicely detailed. Blacks are deep, shadow detail very good, colours look nice and natural, skin tones accurate. Other than slight ghosting with movement in front of certain vertical backgrounds, such as the railing (42:21 is perhaps the most obvious) artefacts were absent.
Subtitles are available in English, English for the hearing impaired, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish. The English subtitles are in a clear white font, but do abbreviate the dialogue in the section I sampled.
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Audio options are English or Italian DTS-HD MA 5.1.
The English DTS- HD MA 5.1 audio is robust. Dialogue is occasionally unclear, with Pena’s Hispanic hitman being quite difficult but there was always the subtitles. Other times the dialogue was drowned by the songs, which were played very, very loud in the mix! The explosions, such as the exploding melons, where also loud and reverberate in the sound stage. The surrounds are frequently in action with music and engines and tires. The subwoofer added oomph to the music, engines and explosions when required.
The score is nominally by Ludwig Goransson but I must say I hardly noticed it due to the constant rock, rap and Hispanic songs that dominated the soundtrack, with contributions by Beastie Boys, The Hives, Generationals, Band of Horses and Glenn Frey among others. These songs were loud, and thus did call attention to themselves.
Lip synchronisation was fine.
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A decent, if superficial, range of extras.
Actors Jessie Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson and director Ruben Fleischer are shown in the bottom right hand corner of the screen sitting together and chatting. The camera moves to who is talking, which is useful. Fleischer does some moderating, asking questions and prompting the actors, and while they laugh a lot and make jokes, this is a more entertaining commentary than many of this type with multiple speakers. They go into the locations, the script and improvised lines, the low tech intentions, CGI and green screen shots, the music.
Superficial EPK stating how much fun everyone and everything was. With film and behind the scenes footage and interview sound bites with the director, editor, producers and eight cast members, all in 14 minutes.
More of the above EPK, with a focus on the action scenes.
10:58 minutes of deleted and extended scenes (there is a play all option):
More in the nature of alternative ad-libs than goofs (there is a play all option):
Not a trailer for the film but a promomtion for Blu-ray.
Access the internet for more material.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Sony Blu-ray releases around the regions of 30 Minutes or Less are Region Free and identical except for some subtitle and language options. Buy local.
Throw together some action and car chases, loud music, a bit of nudity, some foul language, some reasonable actors and some funny moments, and you get 30 Minutes or Less.
The video is good, the audio loud. There is a range of extras which are more EPK than anything else but they are the same as available in other regions.
| Video | |
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| Extras | |
| Plot | |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony BDP-S580, using HDMI output |
| Display | LG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | NAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated. |
| Amplification | NAD T737 |
| Speakers | Studio Acoustics 5.1 |