Confess, Fletch

Etch A Fletch

Confess, Fletch
USA 2022
Directed by Greg Mottola
Miramax

Once upon a time there was a movie called Fletch. It starred Chevy Chase as the title character, Irvin Maurice Fletcher, or I M Fletcher (pronounced, I Am Fletcher) and it was based on the first book of a series of Fletch novels (including prequels), written by a truly great writer called Gregory McDonald (now sadly deceased). Me and my late, great best friend Kerry loved Fletch and quoted it as often as we could. It was the first but, not quite the last, time I liked Chevy Chase in anything and, as a result, I acquired and read all of the Fletch novels available (which included the one this current film is based on) and picked the others up as and when McDonald wrote them. They were all absolutely brilliant (apart from, maybe, Carioca, Fletch, which I could never get on with for some reason) and we were all chomping at the bit for a proper sequel.

Fate was not kind to the legion of Fletch fans because, in the film company's infinite stupidity, the direct movie sequel, Fletch Lives, was not based on one of McDonald’s books, being completely a studio concocted adventure. And it showed. It was, alas, pretty awful (asides from Harold Faltermeyer’s wonderful follow up score) and, yeah, I think it must be the combination of terrible, unwitty dialogue coupled with yet more outrageous disguises for Chase to don (which were never a part of the novels and which they should have ditched for the first film too), which killed the franchise stone dead. There was talk of it being revived over the years, most notably when the great Kevin Smith was going to write and direct McDonald’s first prequel, Fletch Won, to star Jason Lee. That would have been awesome as Smith is one of those writers who would have completely understood how the dialogue and characterisation would have worked... the novels are all about the dialogue and the odd, subtly done surprise twist, as far as I’m concerned.

Which brings me to the new adaptation of a Fletch novel... Confess, Fletch. And, wow, the audience finally got the sequel it deserved.

This one stars John Hamm as former investigative reporter Fletch, dabbling around the art world and, on the surface, attempting to find some stolen paintings so that his new fiance, Angela (played by Lorenza Izzo), the daughter of a count, can find the painting required to pay off the ransom on her kidnapped father. But, as complicated as that plot seems... there’s always just a little more twist with a Fletch story and, like most of the novels, you won’t properly begin to see the real picture until the  evolving post-mortem of an epilogue, where all the pieces finally fit together. And that’s all I’m saying about the plot because, by the very nature of the style of story telling involved in these books/films, I need to keep this one spoiler free.  

Now, I’m going to address the elephant in the room for fans of the novel right away here. I was angry about the exclusion, from this movie, of the second most important character in the book, the eccentric Irish Detective Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn. He’s a force to be reckoned with in this novel and was popular enough that, after appearing and making a difference to the way events run in this story, spun off into his own series of Flynn books by MacDonald. Here he’s replaced by two equally likeable police characters who, it has to be said, are mostly portrayed as incompetent whereas, if memory serves, while Flynn seems like he’s incompetent to Fletch in the novel at first, he comes into his own and brings his own spin into giving the movers and shakers enough rope to hang themselves... and others... with. And I was annoyed he’s not in the movie but, it turns out, there are legal issues with using the character in this film (which I hope are beyond the stupid one of just paying more money for the character) and so... it had to be done without Flynn.

Normally I would be calling this an unforgivable crime (which, to be fair, it is) but I have to cut the writers, director and performers some slack here because... absolutely everything else about the style and atmosphere of the novels, they got right. Admittedly, they’ve felt the need to update Fletch to an era of emails and cell phones (not right) but the dialogue is clever and the spirit of the piece is well and truly intact. It was an absolute joy to watch this.

The actors in this are great too. I’ve got no idea who John Hamm is and I don’t remember him from anything I’ve seen but he’s almost perfect for Fletch. By ‘almost perfect’ I mean he delivers his lines well and has exactly the same ‘laid back to the point of being deceitful’ attitude of the character (who nobody ever really listens to well enough to get any of his jokes). I love the way that, like the books, half the stuff he says to people goes by them without them noticing it. So, yeah, Hamm does an absolutely gorgeous job... but... at 51 years of age he’s just too old for the part and looks it, to be honest. That’s the only problem I had with it but, I’m willing to overlook that because a) it’s not his fault and b) he’s absolutely fabulous... although I’d get any sequels done quickly because I do not want to see a 60 year old Fletch running around in this kind of story. Oh.. and a quick shout out to another person I never heard of, Ayden Mayeri, who really knocks it out the park playing a character called Griz. Stellar work lady!

And, he’s backed up by some great actors doing some wonderful performances...  Kyle MacLachlan’s germophobic art dealer is good, John Slattery as Fletch’s former boss at the New York Tribune is excellent and, wow, Marcia Gay Harden does a wonderful turn as Fletch’s possible future mother-in-law, The Countess. And it all goes towards cementing the perfect formula of the novels... these are not comedies, as Paramount found out when it went into full comedy mode for the bizarre sequel Fletch Lives... these are comedy thrillers. That is to say, straight thrillers with a very strong sense of humour, not least of which is found in the dialogue and thought processes of the titular character. Which is exactly what we have here and which they really managed to nail.

So yeah, I loved Confess, Fletch and, if you liked that original first movie and, especially if you liked MacDonald’s fantastic series of books, you will probably love this one and go into it with the right kind of expectations. I’m very interested in seeing how this does at the box office because, frankly, I think we might find the audience for this kind of solid movie has probably not got a lot of  crossover with the young target audience who go to the cinema... so I hope they look at figures for streaming and, please give us a Blu Ray release of this one (not to mention a proper CD edition of David Arnold’s wonderful score... damn thing’s only available as a stupid digital download at present). So, yeah, great movie, don’t miss out.