Jesse Eisenberg‘s signature fast-talking and neurotic acting style lends itself perfectly well to being the put-upon straight man in the comedy genre, so it came as little surprise when he used it as a springboard to mainstream success. The first major leading role of his career was in 2009’s warmly received Adventureland, but it was the release of Zombieland six months later that gave him his first genuine box office hit after the movie raked in over $100 million on a $23 million budget.
Proving there were many more strings to his bow, Eisenberg followed that up with an Academy Award nominated performance in David Fincher’s The Social Network, before reteaming with Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer for another stab at high concept action comedy. The actor played a pizza delivery boy who ends up getting kidnapped by two wannabe criminal geniuses in 30 Minutes or Less, and they strap a bomb to his chest and force him into robbing a bank for good measure.
That’s basically the entire plot in a nutshell, with most of the humor coming from Danny McBride and Nick Swardson’s bumbling bad guys along with lead character Nick’s fractious relationship with his estranged best friend Chet, played by Aziz Ansari in typically energetic form. The easygoing chemistry between the four stars does a good job of papering over the cracks in the plotting, and the movie ended up scraping past $40 million at the box office.
30 Minutes or Less has endured as something of a cult favorite among the stoner crowd, but it becomes available to over 190 million subscribers next month when it gets added to the Netflix library on January 1st. The streaming service has seen plenty of forgotten genre films crack the Top 10 most-watched list in recent times, and this one might well follow suit.