Review: Confess, Fletch

 Jon Hamm plays the title smart arse, a former investigative journalist who gets caught up in a case involving kidnap as well as the theft of a Picasso. Lorenza Izzo plays the daughter of a Count (Robert Picardo of all people), with Marcia Gay Harden playing her stepmother. John Slattery is Fletch’s former editor, and Kyle MacLachlan plays a germaphobe art dealer.

 

With all due respect to the original stories by Gregory McDonald, if you’re gonna do a “Fletch” movie, you’re gonna be compared to the Michael Ritchie/Chevy Chase vehicles because those are more well-known. In other words, you better be damn funny if you don’t want to end up looking like a damn fool. I love the 1985 “Fletch”, and whilst Jon Hamm isn’t miscast as the title smart-arse detective (Jason Sudeikis would’ve been even better), this 2022 film from director Greg Mottola (the genuinely funny “Superbad”) and co-writer Zev Borow (a story editor on TV’s “Chuck”) just can’t compete with even the underrated “Fletch Lives”. It’s not a bad film, it’s just not memorable, and more importantly it’s not funny. Hamm has a certain dry, glib delivery but not quite on the level of Chase. He and Lorenza Izzo are OK but not very interesting either. Marcia Gay Harden swings and misses as she does about half the time as an actress for me. The only real standout in the cast is a foul-mouthed John Slattery as a professional colleague of the title character.

 

Bland, unfunny, and forgettable. If it had at least been funny I feel like the film could’ve worked. As is, the laughs aren’t there and the mystery is pretty tedious. It isn’t the worst film in the world, but if it had been that might’ve at least made it halfway interesting.

 

Rating: C

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