30 Minutes or Less with Brian Wells (or Mark Zuckerberg?)

Columbia Pictures is coming out with a new action comedy on the 12th of August called 30 Minutes or less ( http://www.30minutesorless.com/ ) staring Jesse Eisenberg (you know him for playing Zuckerberg in The Social Network) which according to www.imdb.com is an action-adventure comedy about a marijuana smoking pizza delivery guy who is kidnapped by two criminals who strap an explosive onto his body and threaten to blow him up if Eisenberg’s character doesn’t rob a bank for them.  

Now here’s the rub.

Back in 2003 Brian Wells, a high school drop out, was kidnapped by three of his associates where he was then subjected to wearing a bomb around his neck (as popular with hostage taking in South America http://articles.latimes.com/2000/may/19/news/mn-31761) and told to rob a bank, gathering $125,000, or the bomb would be detonated.  Although Wells was part of the planning stages of this bank robbery he was under the impression that the bomb would not be real, and was not told that it was until he was kidnapped by his co-conspirators.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wells_(bank_robber)  

As Wells went about trying to rob the bank the police were notified and after a 30 minute delay the bomb squad was called.  Before the bomb squad could reach the victim of this plot the device was used by one of his co-conspirators and Wells died at the scene.   [There’s video of it on-line but I’m not posting a snuff film onto my blog, if you want to see that Google it for yourself.]

Those responsible for Wells execution were apprehended eventually and all convicted on a plethora of felonies including bank robbery, conspiracy to committ bank robbery, and felony use of a firearm in connection with a crime.  The three surviving conspirators received between 30 and 45 years in prison for their crimes.   The last one convicted in 2010. 

The bomb-necklace has been used elsewhere in the media since this crime was committed; from TV shows (Criminal Minds, Law & Order: [there’s too many of them to be specific], and Bones) to video games and books.  However a year later we have Hollywood releasing a buddy action-adventure comedy about almost the exact same situation?  The title Thirty Minutes or Less practically mocks the situation since the bomb squad was called in a half hour after the first 9-1-1 call was placed.

This fraud committed against Wells, believing the bomb wouldn’t be active, along with the sordid details of how this all played out, and the video of it online seems to the writer to be a bit of a slap in the face to both the victim and the criminal justice system that has just laid this to rest.  The details of this true life crime story and the movie seems to be far too close to one another (pizza delivery guy, bomb-necklace, forced to rob a bank) to make the movie “fun” and the movie’s tone seems to be too light to take the real life situation seriously after such tragic events took place.

I understand that the victim being linked to the planning stages of the crime lessens the layman’s feelings of guilt that he was then executed by those that he believed earlier that day to be his friends but having the guy from Zombieland and The Social Network [both great movies] run around in a comedy seems callous even to the most jaded of individuals.         

[PS Next post will be coming soon and it’s going to tackle some good old fashion white collar crime.  Cincinnati I’m looking at you.]