One can get an MPL and legally fly passenger jets with as little as 80 hours. However, as Jonkster stated correctly that is just the time spent flying an airplane. In the trainings i know there are another 200 hours spend in flight training devices, and if you include briefing, debriefing and session preparation you end up with two to three times that amount. And that is pure flight training without any theoretical classroom training that is required as well. Classroom training varies of course, but again in the courses i know it equates to roughly another 1500 to 1800 hours with at least the same spend studying on your own. All in all two quite intense years of learning and exams.
In the US one has to get quite some experience as well in flying, although the merits of that are debatable except shrinking the labour pool and raising prices, which it did very successfully.