Capsule reviews of films playing the week of Sept. 7 

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30 MINUTES OR LESS While I've seen worse comedies this year, I haven't sat through any as unpleasant as 30 Minutes or Less. Never mind that newbie screenwriters Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan loosely based their script on a real-life incident that ended in death (their claims to the contrary are blatant lies); if there's one thing we've learned from a century-plus of cinema, it's that just about any subject can explored for potential humor if the right people are involved. But in the case of 30 Minutes or Less, the right people must have been off making another movie. A shrill, clumsy film that has no idea how to orchestrate its black-comedy maneuvers, this finds Jesse Eisenberg cast as Nick, a pizza delivery man who's kidnapped by two grade-A doofuses, Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson). Needing $100,000 in a jiffy, the pair strap a bomb to Nick and inform him that he must rob a bank or else the device will explode. A frantic Nick gets his best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) to participate, but matters only get more hectic, not less, in the aftermath of the heist. Eisenberg fares best simply by not straying far from his patented persona (The Social Network star even gets off a joke about Facebook), but whoever thought that casting three irritants like McBride, Swardson and Ansari in the same film was a good idea clearly has a much higher threshold for obnoxious behavior than I do. The shocking story behind this largely laughless endeavor is that it was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who previously teamed with Eisenberg on the wild and witty Zombieland. But while that engaging effort brought new life to the zombie flick, this one is strictly dead on arrival. *1/2

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON Stating that Transformers: Dark of the Moon is better than 2009's infamous Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a futile declaration best left for mathematicians to ponder, as only they might care to take the time to calculate the minuscule percentage that was necessary for this to emerge, uh, superior to its predecessor. 2007's Transformers contained enough flashes of warmth, emotion and workable humor to catch many critics off guard, but all that goodwill dissipated with the release of the first sequel, which one scribe — oh, yeah, me — described as "the filmic equivalent of a 150-minute waterboarding session." This latest franchise filler is just as soulless, cynical and stupid (and five minutes longer!), with director Michael Bay no longer even pretending to care about anything but breaking his own box office records. The plot again finds Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) taking on the Decepticons alongside other returning characters (Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro), one newcomer (Frances "Are you fucking kidding me?" McDormand), and the Autobots: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Ironhide, Sleepy, Bashful and Dopey. Bay's fascistic tendencies aren't quite as pronounced as in the last installment, but there isn't anything this man won't do for the sake of arousing himself, be it an establishing shot of Sam's girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) that solely captures her 3-D-enhanced ass, a moment when Sam's mom surmises that her son must have a big schlong in order to land such hotties, or a scene in which a little girl unknowingly plays tea party with a disguised Decepticon who then leaps up and murders her mom and dad. From start to finish, it's a miserable viewing experience, and the robot slugfests are once again incoherent and endless. So why is Dark of the Moon better than Revenge of the Fallen? Two reasons. First, there's an Inception-like sequence (right down to similar music) involving a folded building that's pretty cool. And second, unlike its predecessor, there are no shots of Transformer testicles. *

THE WHISTLEBLOWER Here's some pertinent information about DynCorp, culled from various sources: "DynCorp International is a United States-based private military company [which] has provided services for the U.S. military in Bolivia, Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait ... Throughout the world, DynCorp employees have been accused (and frequently found guilty) of murder, torture, fraud, and paying for male child prostitutes." And the sickening punchline: "DynCorp currently receives more than 96% of its $2 billion in annual revenues from the US federal government." Why is this relevant to a review of The Whistleblower? Here's why: "DynCorp had a $15 million contract to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia at the time Kathryn Bolkovac reported such officers were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex-trafficking. She was unfairly dismissed due to a protected disclosure (whistleblowing)." Although the name DynCorp has been changed for the film, the name Kathryn Bolkovac remains, and this picture relates her harrowing experiences while working in Bosnia. Needless to say, this is a prime example of feel-bad cinema, and one scene in particular — a teenage girl who tried to escape is punished for her actions — is practically unwatchable. But film has a responsibility to educate as well as entertain, and for those up to the task, The Whistleblower is an ofttimes powerful experience, with Ukrainian-Canadian writer-director Larysa Kondracki (making her feature debut, as is co-scripter Eilis Kirwan) avoiding unnecessary embellishments and letting the story speak for itself. As Kathryn Bolkovac, Rachel Weisz brings the same no-nonsense demeanor and steely conviction that informed her Oscar-winning performance in The Constant Gardener: We share her frustrations when dealing with sexist U.S. peacekeepers and unctuous h.r. personnel as well as Bosnian police officers who chuckle and crack jokes when confronted with battered or murdered women. For all its righteous indignation, The Whistleblower never soars as high as comparable titles like The Killing Fields and the aforementioned The Constant Gardener. But those needing a break from such imbecilic fantasies as The Smurfs and Transformers: Part Trois won't mind subjecting themselves to its uncomfortable truths. ***