Confess, Fletch (2022)

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1985’s Fletch is one of the funniest films of that decade. It showcases its star, Chevy Chase, in the best performance of his career, operating on all comedic cylinders while doing so with nuance and an ounce of pain behind his eyes. However, what makes the movie great is the filmmaking itself, directed by the underappreciated Michael Ritchie who expertly creates a space for Chase’s cynical snarkiness and Andrew Bergman’s plot-heavy script to compete neck and neck in a battle for the ages.

Based on Gregory Mcdonald’ 1976 novel of the same name, Confess, Fletch – the first installment since Ritchie’s 1989 direct sequel – wisely never tries to match Chevy Chase’s energy, wit, or idiosyncrasies. Instead, director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland) utilizes Jon Hamm’s own comedic personality in an attempt to make the audience forget everything that’s been ingrained in their heads about the character over these past 37 years.

Yet, despite a valiant effort, the film never quite achieves its goal and it’s impossible to watch without drawing relatively unfair comparisons to the original. However, this reboot is still a mostly entertaining film, with or without the “Fletch” name.

Hamm plays Irwin Fletcher, a former investigative journalist who now lives in Europe as an art critic. During his brief visit back to the States, he borrows an apartment from a friend-of-a-friend in Boston. But once he discovers a dead woman inside the residence and calls the cops, he becomes a main suspect in the murder investigation. While he hearkens back to his journalism days to try and solve the murder himself, he also builds an encroaching relationship with the two officers (Roy Wood Jr. and Ayden Mayeri) leading the investigation, much to their irritation.

Immediately, Mottola makes sure we know that his new Fletch is mindfully divorced from the originals by placing a dark filter over the entire picture to imply a level of seediness. If that doesn’t work, the change in the lead actor will surely do the trick.

While Jon Hamm is perfectly capable of smugness and pairing insouciance with creative insults, he doesn’t quite have the rascally behavior required for the job. He’s got the charisma, sure, and he succeeds at landing the jokes with the proper subtly, but there’s a certain level of spontaneity, whether perceived or brought upon by actual ad-libbing, that can only be delivered by a short-list of talents, both in front of and behind the camera.

That’s not to say Confess, Fletch doesn’t have certain guffaw-ready bits, including social commentary on the word “bespoke,” but the humor decidedly leans too heavily on the script. Hamm’s co-stars, on the other hand, are more than adequate, such as John Slattery (a reunion from Mad Men) as Fletch’s crass ex-boss Frank, Marcia Gay Harden as Fletch’s obtrusive Italian mother-in-law-to-be, Eugene Mirman as the J. Geils Band-obsessed security guard at the yacht club, and Roy Wood Jr. as the sleep-deprived Inspector.

Regardless of any comedic ineptitudes, the script from Mottola and Zev Borow molds together a decent murder mystery, with some requisite political correctness thrown in for good measure (always a good idea for an R-rated comedy). It’s also worth noting that Confess, Fletch is one of the rare R-rated comedies to come out from a major studio in the last 10 years, mostly due to some awkward F-bombs, though it’s very much coded as a safer PG-13.

There’s a reason why attempts at rebooting the series have routinely failed over the past couple of decades. Simply put, no one could see anyone else besides Chase in the titular role – us included. Names like Jason Sudeikis, Joshua Jackson, and Jason Lee (that one may have worked) have been tossed around over the years, whether in earnest or otherwise, but nothing ever panned out until now.

Confess, Fletch suffers from the same issue inherently built into the Fletch universe: attempting to balance comedy with noir conventions. In the 1985 Chevy Chase original, it was that very discordance that allowed its star to showcase his unpredictability and deceptive range as an actor. Here, it unintentionally forces the comedy, even with a very game Jon Hamm in the lead, to take a secondary role to the plot itself.