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Confess, Fletch
Even Jon Hamm's considerable onscreen charisma can't save 2022's Confess, Fletch, a confusing and lackluster attempt to revive the character played by Chevy Chase way back in 1985, with the primary culprit seeming to be a screenplay telling two stories that take WAY too long to come together.
After a whirlwind romance in Rome with a glamorous heiress named Angela Di Grassi, IM Fletcher returns to the Boston townhouse where he's staying, that's owned by an Owen Tasserly and finds a murdered woman in the living room upon his return. While Fletch attempts to convince a pair of police detectives that he didn't kill this woman, he is surprised by the arrival of Angela and the news that her father has been kidnapped and all the kidnappers want in exchange for his return is a very rare Picasso.
The idea of reviving one of Chevy Chase's best movie characters is not a bad idea;, unfortunately, director and co-screenwriter Greg Mottola don't spend a lot of time redesigning the Fletch character to fit the talents of Jon Hamm. We have the same light-hearted smart-ass quality that 1985 Fletch had, but there really is nothing else in the screenplay or in Hamm's portrayal here that hearkens back to Chase's character, except for the fact that every 10 minutes of the running time, Hamm's Fletch reminds us and everyone else in the movie that he used to be an investigative reporter. One of the most interesting aspects of the 1985 character was his propensity for disguises that is completely left out in this film.
Mottola seems to try and dazzle us with a terribly busy screenplay that requires complete attention that never really pays off. It took me 20 minutes to figure who's apartment Fletch was staying in at the beginning of the film and by the end of the film, it made no sense why he was staying there, despite a pair of long winded speeches by the villain and by the cops explaining exactly what happened here. Sadly, by the time these explanations finally rolled across the screen, I was just struggling to keep my eyes open.
Hamm works very hard to make us like this new Fletch (Hamm is also billed as the film's producer), but the story is fighting him every step of the way. I did enjoy Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as Angela's sex-starved stepmother and a charming newcomer named Ayden Mayeri as a rookie detective named Griz, but unless you're obsessed with Jon Hamm, I'd give this one a hard pass.
Even Jon Hamm's considerable onscreen charisma can't save 2022's Confess, Fletch, a confusing and lackluster attempt to revive the character played by Chevy Chase way back in 1985, with the primary culprit seeming to be a screenplay telling two stories that take WAY too long to come together.
After a whirlwind romance in Rome with a glamorous heiress named Angela Di Grassi, IM Fletcher returns to the Boston townhouse where he's staying, that's owned by an Owen Tasserly and finds a murdered woman in the living room upon his return. While Fletch attempts to convince a pair of police detectives that he didn't kill this woman, he is surprised by the arrival of Angela and the news that her father has been kidnapped and all the kidnappers want in exchange for his return is a very rare Picasso.
The idea of reviving one of Chevy Chase's best movie characters is not a bad idea;, unfortunately, director and co-screenwriter Greg Mottola don't spend a lot of time redesigning the Fletch character to fit the talents of Jon Hamm. We have the same light-hearted smart-ass quality that 1985 Fletch had, but there really is nothing else in the screenplay or in Hamm's portrayal here that hearkens back to Chase's character, except for the fact that every 10 minutes of the running time, Hamm's Fletch reminds us and everyone else in the movie that he used to be an investigative reporter. One of the most interesting aspects of the 1985 character was his propensity for disguises that is completely left out in this film.
Mottola seems to try and dazzle us with a terribly busy screenplay that requires complete attention that never really pays off. It took me 20 minutes to figure who's apartment Fletch was staying in at the beginning of the film and by the end of the film, it made no sense why he was staying there, despite a pair of long winded speeches by the villain and by the cops explaining exactly what happened here. Sadly, by the time these explanations finally rolled across the screen, I was just struggling to keep my eyes open.
Hamm works very hard to make us like this new Fletch (Hamm is also billed as the film's producer), but the story is fighting him every step of the way. I did enjoy Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as Angela's sex-starved stepmother and a charming newcomer named Ayden Mayeri as a rookie detective named Griz, but unless you're obsessed with Jon Hamm, I'd give this one a hard pass.