‘Confess, Fletch’ Review: A Low-Key Spin

An adaptation hoping to reclaim its protagonist from the performer who became synonymous with him in the ’80s, Greg Mottola’s Confess, Fletch may surprise moviegoers who only know Irwin Maurice Fletcher as the affably cartoonish sleuth played by Chevy Chase. Not only are the goofy disguises and many of the quips gone in this version, new star Jon Hamm (successor to would-be Fletches ranging from Jasons Lee to Sudeikis) is barely even trying to make us laugh, setting aside those chops in favor of easygoing charm. While the more mystery/less mayhem approach honors Gregory Mcdonald’s series of Fletch novels, it results in a very ordinary film — especially decades after the books’ publication, when funny and funny-ish detectives are a dime a dozen. In an agreeable way, Confess plays like the feature-length pilot for an ’80s TV detective series — or, in the present tense, a much less ambitious American counterpart to the BBC’s string of long-form Sherlock Holmes mysteries starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

This film’s Fletch has already given up on journalism (or vice-versa), though he’s quick to inform strangers that he “was an investigative reporter of some repute.” He’s ostensibly researching a book on a painter of Old West subjects; but in Fletch’s world, doing one thing at a time is too simple. As we meet him, for instance, he’s about to have to start convincing cops he didn’t kill somebody.