Confess, Fletch

Confess, Fletch does something for legacy sequels I don’t think any other legacy sequel has considered; instead of trying to crack the code of how to embrace nostalgia without lapsing into lazy fan service, while forging ahead without disrespecting the past, it simply … makes another movie. It gives you enough info as to whom I.M. Fletcher is, and I’m sure there’s some Easter eggs in there (it’s been decades since I’ve seen the Fletch movies, so I don’t know for sure), but by and large, this movie uses an established character and just presents him in a new adventure. And it works. The movie is free from baggage and allowed to do its own thing. I was hesitant on how Jon Hamm would do in the role, given how indelibly it was tied to Chevy Chase. It was quite the relief to discover Hamm not only slides into it perfectly, but does it better. I’m serious. No knock against Chevy, but he’s had three roles in his career: hapless everyman (Clark Griswold) Pierce Hawthorne, and abrasive douche-cannon (just about everything else). He’s good at all of them, but that’s the extent of it. He played Fletch — a charismatic, clever, arrogant, smarmy, occasionally dumb guy — like the last one, and it worked, but it also made Fletch a bit of an ass. Hamm adds in some much needed humanity to Fletch; he still plays into all of Fletch’s characteristics, but the negative ones have a layer of humanity to them. He no longer feels like a quip machine, and his arrogance has some clueless blustering behind it. In short, he feels more like a three dimensional character now. And that’s good, since it’s Fletch’s movie, and all the other characters (who are all fun in their own ways) orbit around and bounce off of him. He is the movie’s engine, and he does it very well. The only negative things I can say about the movie are an occasionally frenzied editing that whips you from scene to scene a little faster than it should, and there’s some moments where it gets from plot point to plot point without quite connecting the dots. They’re enough to keep it from the whole enchilada, but not enough to sink the movie by any means. This is a witty, fun movie with a good mystery, lots of twists and turns, and it even recognizes how Fletch fits into the modern world (which is to say, ill-fittingly). If you liked the original, and withstood the sequel, you owe it to yourself to watch this redeem the series.