Film Review: ‘Unplugging’: Rookie Director Debra Neil-Fisher’s Train Wreck Debut

Eva Longoria as Jeanine in "Unplugging." Vertical Entertainment

R | 1h 34min | Comedy| April 22, 2022  (USA)

There’s some good news for anyone affiliated in any way with either “The Desperate Hour” or “Blacklight.” However inferior or wanting your films might have been, neither holds a stink candle to the unmitigated disaster that is “Unplugging,” the debut directorial effort from longtime editor Debra Neil-Fisher.

The cutter of over 40 mostly critically panned feature and TV movies dating back to the late 1980s, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Neil-Fisher’s first foray behind the camera and calling the shots would go down in flames. Yet no one could have predicted the rapid rate of descent and molten heat level of the plane itself.

True Failure Is a Team Effort

It is almost impossible for a single person to sabotage a movie so thoroughly and, in Neil-Fisher’s defense, she received a great deal of assistance from screenwriters Matt Walsh and Brad Morris. While both divided their time between playing generic character roles on TV and in film, each has dabbled in penning scripts for both mediums, and their collective resumes are on a similar, mediocre par as Neil-Fisher. “Unplugging” marks their first and, hopefully, final collaboration.