With an impressive stellar ensemble as a cast, and the very topical premise of everyone’s obsession with being glued to their cellphones, and helmed by talented writer/director Russell Brown, Search Engines had all the hallmarks of being a  very successful comedy.  On paper at least. 

Set in California as an assorted group of family and friends gather together for a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by middle-aged divorcee Judy (a delightful Joely Fisher) who is cooking for the first time,  and all from recipes she has gleaned from the internet. Included in there number is Shane (Nick Court) a rather patronizing British social researcher who is there to record the event , and who Brown uses as a conduit for the 14 odd guests to share their stories.

Judy’s mother Gina (the ever fabulous Connie Stevens) is not too happy with having her usual position usurped as the matriarch, and she is the only one in the company who has no interest in any aspect of Social Media,  and in fact can barely tolerate the GPS system in her car that always gets her lost.

Judy’s best friend Georgia (Natasha Gregson Wagner) is there with Rick (Michael Muhney) her closeted husband, but he is to distracted with cruising for men in Grindr to pay any attention to her.  As is handsome Dylan (Philipp Karner) the high-end pet groomer (this is L.A. after all), and the moment their profiles connect, they are sneaking off to the bathroom together. Bert (Devon Graye), another hottie, is a self absorbed actor who spends most if is time just taking selfies of himself, and totally ignoring everyone else.

There is Petra (Michelle Hurd)  who constantly blogs about every menial aspect of her day (which she alone thinks is interesting) whilst at the same time totally neglecting her husband and 6 year old daughter.  However the child barely notices as she has her head playing video games on her own device the whole time.

And so the first, and the funniest part too, is the set up of all these and the other characters stories, and then when this is done, suddenly no-one is able to get any service or signal on their cellphones, and everyone has a mini melt-down as if its armageddon.  Judy’s two teenage daughters who have never even known about a life without social media are devastated but the eldest one Zoe (Grace Folsom) turns out to be the one in the crowd who gives the most spirited defense of her generation’s reliance on technology to do more than survive.

The second part of the movie just tries way too hard to please and the laughs start to fade rapidly, so much so that  we are really unsure if this final section is intended to be a comedy at all. Somehow as Brown tried to neatly tie up all the plot strands by the time the end credits rolled, the cliches just got in the way of it all as he started to lecture about the pitfalls of being so reliant on all the different aspects of social media.  

Pity that it never fulfilled it’s potential, or it’s early promise.