Confess, Fletch

Irwin M. Fletcher has an answer for everything and is unflappable in the face of danger.

When he comes back from a trip and finds a woman murdered in his rental he calls the police non-emergency line.

“Send the homicide guys,” he says. “They love this stuff.”

Fletch, as he prefers to be called, tells everyone that he used to be an investigative reporter of some renown. Chevy Chase made two movies playing the title character and everyone mostly seems to agree that they were Chevy Chase movies more than they were the Fletch of the Gregory Mcdonald books.

Jon Hamm plays the title character in this outing and he’s smugly perfect as a guy working very hard and looking like he’s not doing much at all.

Each little scene is a nice slice of comedy and mystery that winds its way to a satisfying, low-stakes, ending. There is also a solid running gag and a clever turn of phrase in nearly every scene.

I think the only special effects in the thing involve actual fireworks. It’s not a movie that needs special effects

It’s a fun cross between a hang-out movie and a character study. If only all the characters in your life were as fun, sexy, and witty as these folks.

Extra credit should go to Marcia Gay Harden who got laughs from me every time she said the title character’s name in her outrageously fake Italian accent: “Flessh.”

Clearly, it’s no secret of what’s on her mind.

Hamm plays Fletch with the confidence that Idris Elba once showed when he guest starred on The Office. In a line, I still quote today (it’s not true for me but I still like to say it) Elba announced, “I’m aware of my effect on women.”

The movie has several mysteries in the air at once and gives us two competent, annoyed police detectives, who try to follow Fletch around and work to solve the murder.

As someone who spent decades watching cops and courts work I can confirm that most of what happens in this movie would not happen in real life. At one point, one of the characters is arrested and charged with murder and then released on bail. Please just know that if you are ever arrested and charged with murder you will not get bail. They will keep you in jail until the trial.

But the movie couldn’t get to its ending if that little bit of reality was injected into the plot. And honestly, I was having so much fun by then that I didn’t mind.

Mysteries have made a comeback, of sorts, in the cinema. We have Kenneth Branagh playing Hercule Poirot and Writer/Director Ryan Johnson’s Benoit Blanc flicks.

I think the world could use a couple more of these snarky-yet-charming features. If any fictional character could con his way back onto the screen it’s Fletch.