"The Help"

(PG-13, Now Avail.)

In the early 1960s segregation was a reality in the south that seemed to have no end in sight. To even question the practice could land you in prison.

Young aspiring writer Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) knows this. However, she's not content to just cover meaningless stories for the local Jackson, Mississippi newspaper that's recently hired her. She wants to hear the true stories of the women who raise the white children of the state, but who are still treated as second class citizens. Skeeter plans to take on a way of life that no one has before, but she'll need the women in question to speak for themselves.

Maid Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis, "Doubt") has been bringing up kids other than her own for decades now, indisposable yet replaceable in the eyes of her employers. Having been raised by a black maid herself and being disgusted by the attitudes of so many of the other young white women in town, Skeeter is determined to change things.

But writing the story Skeeter wants to tell is risky, and Aibileen will take some convincing to help out. It will take decidedly more to get fellow maid Minny (Octavia Spencer) or any other Jackson maid to tell the truth about what their lives are really like.

Based upon the 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett, "The Help" is written and directed by Tate Taylor. It's a very good movie with strong performances (particularly from Davis who will undoubtedly receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination when she actually should be put in the lead category) and a mixture of stirring drama and good humor.

What prevents "The Help" from achieving true greatness is that it's just a bit too...by the numbers. It has all of the story beats you would expect and a good number of the characters are archetypes. Smug racist Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) doesn't come off as a real person so much as a representation of all things despicable about...well, smug racists. She's designed to be hissed at.

These problems of predictability and flat supporting characters don't ruin the movie. I never asked this film to reinvent the wheel. But these things are noticeable throughout "The Help" and I couldn't help but wish that things had been presented as being a little bit less like a movie that came from Oprah's book club (even though it actually did). Don't let that stop you from seeing it though. Like I said, it is very good. 7.5/10.

"30 Minutes or Less"

(R, Now avail.)

I'd say that I see one or two comedies every year that boast a good cast, a pretty good writer and/or director, and the potential to be very funny, but for one reason or another that can't be fully explained, just isn't. "30 Minutes or Less," directed by Ruben Fleischer ("Zombieland") is just such a comedy.

Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is an unmotivated pizza delivery man who never seems to reach his destination on time. The only things he seems to care about are his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) and Chet's sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), whom Nick has a secret crush on.

Across town Dwayne (Danny McBride) and his best friend Travis (Nick Swardson) are two equally unmotivated men who don't even deliver pizzas. Dwayne has gotten tired of waiting for his loaded and domineering father (Fred Ward) to die, so he hires an assassin to do the job. First, however, Dwayne will need to pay said assassin, which for Dwayne means robbing a bank.

However, in keeping with the spirit of loaning his criminal activities out, Dwayne decides that he and Travis will kidnap someone, strap a bomb to that someone's chest, and make him rob the bank. As Nick's luck would have it, he is that someone. If he doesn't get the money by the time the bank closes that night, he will quite literally explode. Nick's only hope is to enlist Chet and do the job within the next 10 hours.

"30 Minutes or Less" suffers from the same problem so many bad comedies of this sort do. It might have been funny on the page and I'll bet it seemed hilarious to the gaffer and craft services crew on set, but edited together as a film almost none of it works. It doesn't enter the realm of the painfully unfunny but there are few real laughs to be had.

Although I'm normally a big fan of Eisenberg, he just can't really carry the comedy here, though he does give easily the best performance in the film. Ansari is a very funny man with a great gift for timing and delivery but for some reason here, more often than not, he seems to swing and miss. As for McBride, I don't know if it's that his schtick is finally wearing thin or that his acting range is just very limited, but he's borderline terrible in this. Swardson, someone I rarely enjoy, isn't anything special here but to my surprise I liked him quite a bit more than McBride.

Written by first timer Michael Diliberti, "30 Minutes or Less" is mercifully short and while it's not anywhere near the depths of "Happy Madison" garbage, it's certainly not anything anyone anywhere needs to see. This is easily skippable. 4/10.

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