The story follows a pizza delivery boy who is strapped with a bomb and forced to, with the help of his friend, rob a bank in exchange for disarming it.

Nick Davis works as a pizza delivery driver and rarely completes the "30 Minutes or Less" policy which leads to him being reprimanded by his boss.

They devise a plot to kidnap a complete stranger, to strap a bomb to his chest, and get him to get them hitman money.

Dwayne says he and Travis will meet Nick at an abandoned rail yard to make the exchange, but go to a restaurant.

Juicy and the hit man Chango arrive to pick up the money, but do not have the bomb deactivation code.

While burning on the ground, Chango wounds Dwayne and shoots the gas tank on Travis's back, causing it to explode.

In the alternative ending, Nick, Chet and Kate drive off with the money, discussing what they will do with their newly gained riches.

Dwayne finds his dad on the floor suffering from his gunshot wound and tells him about the tanning salon/brothel idea.

[9][10][11] A screening of the film took place at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con with actors Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña and director Ruben Fleischer.

30 Minutes or Less grossed $13.3 million in its opening weekend across 2,888 theatres, the film was released alongside Final Destination 5 and Glee: The 3D Concert Movie below studio expectations.

The site's critical consensus reads, "It's sporadically funny and it benefits from a talented cast, but 30 Minutes or Less suffers from a disjointed narrative, and too often mistakes crude gags for true lowbrow humor.

[19] Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave the film a positive review stating that it was made with "flair and ingenuity" despite being "entirely ridiculous.

[21] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, criticizing Michael Diliberti's screenplay for its "lethally stupid" characters and "extreme dullness"[22] The plot of the film bears a resemblance to a real-life bank robbery gone wrong that resulted in the death of Brian Wells in 2003.

[24] Additionally, an investigation found that the motive behind the robbery was for Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the convicted mastermind, to use the stolen money to hire a hitman to kill her father and receive her inheritance, also like the film.