Mark Reviews Movies: CONFESS, FLETCH

Confess, Fletch, Miramax

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 15, 2022

Investigative journalist and amateur investigator Irwin—but don't call him that—M. Fletcher, known mostly as "Fletch," hasn't been on a screen of any size in over 30 years. The character has been the protagonist of nine of author Gregory McDonald's novels, but the guy is probably best known for the 1985 comedic mystery Fletch, which briefly popularized the character through Chevy Chase's note-perfect performance. After one unfortunate sequel four years later, Fletch disappeared, not only from the movies, but also, it seems, from the public consciousness.

The character lives again, so to speak, in co-writer/director Greg Mottola's Confess, Fletch, an adaptation of McDonald's second Fletch mystery book. This time, it's Jon Hamm in the title role, and while a good number of actors could probably play the dead-pan smart-ass way Fletch goes about his unconventional investigative ways, fewer could probably do with the easy charm Hamm brings to the role.

That's vital for the character, who—in case people have forgotten, as it seems they have, given this film's belated existence—gets what he needs out of a subject of interrogation or a suspect simply by telling them what they want to hear. There's something pleasantly quaint about the way Mottola and Zev Borow's screenplay just lets Fletch be Fletch, without any kind gimmick or trick.

Fletch doesn't need any kind of enhanced or preternatural method of thinking and deduction. In fact, this film lets him be wrong on a couple of occasions, if only to remind us that, while he might have a knack for uncovering and drawing out secret information, he's still just an amateur detective. When it comes down to it, the guy is little more than a con man with enough of legitimacy in his profession and his motives to use his powers of convincing for good—even if he convinces himself that he has better handle on the case than he actually does at various points in this story.

That plot begins in modern-day Boston (McDonald's book was set in its present day, too, and given Fletch's simple methods of investigation, technology really doesn't help, hurt, or matter to his ways). Fletch has rented a townhouse in a swanky part of town and arrives to find a bottle of wine, a welcome note, and the dead body of a woman. Since he know he had nothing to do with the murder, Fletch calls the cops.

A couple of detectives—the dedicated but, as a new father, exhausted Det. Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.) and trainee Griz (Ayden Mayeri)—suspect Fletch of the murder, obviously. The evidence is against him. His alibi isn't going to stick in court. Fletch assumes someone from his past must have framed him, but the list of people who might hold a grudge against him is far too long to have a good idea of just one specific person.

There are actually two mysteries for Fletch to solve in this story. The first, of course, is the identity of the killer of that woman. The second has to do with why he came to Boston, after doing some freelance reporting on art across Europe, in the first place.

That one involves Angela (Lorenza Izzo), the daughter of an Italian count. Fletch and the heiress end up in a whirlwind romance, only for Angela's father to be abducted by mobsters. Their ransom demand is a Picasso painting that's in the count's possession. Well, it was in his possession, at least. His art collection had been stolen before his kidnapping, and Fletch has good reason to believe that Boston-based Horan (Kyle MacLachlan), a germophobic art dealer, knows who has those paintings.

Forget most of that for now. The mystery here, with all of its various threads, is fairly decent, in that the suspects are plentiful but not overwhelming, the potential motives of thieves and murderers are assorted and equally possible, and the whole thing ties up in a reasonable way that answers all of our questions. That is if anyone cares enough about the plotting to really have any inquiries.

That mystery—well, the couple of them together—is the point of the plot. The story, though, is more about how Fletch maneuvers through the suspicions against him, confronts the eccentric personalities who might know more about the crimes or another suspect than they would be willing to let on under normal circumstances, and fools them into talking or giving away just enough details by telling them what they want to hear.

Fletch, for example, pretends to be an art buyer to catch Horan attention. He fakes being the style editor at a local paper to get the ex-wife (played by Lucy Punch) of the man who rented him the townhouse to dish dirt about his prime suspect. He doesn't have to say much to get Eve (Annie Mumolo), the homeowner's neighbor, talking. She loves gossiping so much that she doesn't even notice her scarf has caught fire while cooking dinner. As for the abducted count's new wife (played by Marcia Gay Harden), she's certain Fletch wants to sleep with her, even though she's the one who keeps putting herself in situations that could be interpreted in that way.

Such are the simple pleasures of Mottola's film, which allows Hamm to be off-handedly funny and charmingly flippant, all of those side players to be equally suspicious and weird, and the central mysteries to play out convincingly in the backdrop. Confess, Fletch isn't trying to do anything more, and that devotion to simplicity and straightforwardness is why the film works.

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