Confess, Fletch

While investigating a case of valuable stolen paintings, the roguishly charming and endlessly troublesome Fletch becomes the prime suspect in a murder. To prove his innocence, he must sift through a long list of suspects, from an art dealer, to a missing playboy, to a crazy neighbor, even to his own girlfriend…

I keep trying to write “Confess, Feltch” and I don’t know what that says about me… but I don’t think I like it.

Anyway, this film is called Confess, Fletch.

I’ve always been a sucker for dad-fiction, long before it was age appropriate for me. There’s been a lot of Dirk Pitt and Spenser in my life, a bit of Bourne and Jack Ryan on occasion, and a healthy (perhaps unhealthy) dose of Mack Bolan and the Phoenix Force as well, but I’ve never been into Fletch, not the books or the movies. No real reason, really, it’s just how my particular dad fiction cookie has crumbled.

I mostly chalk it up to the inherent obnoxious insufferableness Chevy Chase just exudes whenever he’s not playing Clark Griswold (and sometimes then too), a theory that does hold some water. as this time out, there was no Chevy, and I loved Fletch. I specifically loved Jon Hamm’s portrayal of the character.

Confess, Fletch is a quick-witted little crime drama, a pulp novel brought to the screen, a fun throwback in both style and swagger to a kind of character and story that has fallen out of favor, mostly for good reasons. Is it a bit smug? Yes, but it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be pleasantly ridiculous too, which it is. The best part is that it also comes with a general feeling of self-awareness of the character’s place within modern day American society (both meta-textually and in-universe), and all while still being exactly what a dad fiction in general, and Fletch specifically, is supposed to be… in a nutshell, it is a triumph of its particular idiom.

So yeah, I loved it. I’d definitely turn out for a sequel or two.

One last note: It was super-disorenting when Eugene Mirman (the voice of Gene Belcher from Bob’s Burgers) shows up as a security guard, and the first time you are aware of him, it’s basically just his voice off-screen, so you’re naturally expecting Gene to show up, perhaps dressed as Beefsquatch, and then it’s not Gene… not really.