Confess, Fletch

Based on the 1976 novel of the same name, Confess, Fletch manages to take the bones and tone of a comic murder-mystery and create something as charming as its protagonist. Gregory Mcdonald wrote 15 novels in the series, including two sets of spin-offs. Though the first novel was filmed back in 1985, the second took decades to come to the screen. That despite there already having been a sequel, one written specifically for the screen.

Mcdonald had other works adapted to film including Running Scared and Johnny Depp's directorial debut The Brave. Recurrent themes of murder, suicide, and bad deals abound. Noir-ish in intent, Confess, Fletch occupies a conspiratorial hinterland that'd be familiar to Chandler or Hammett or in some of the finer things the work of Fleming. When Fletch says "I'm an open book" he's got form.

We start as the text does, with a murder. Not one that's an emergency though, and it's in that unhurriedness that a tale of kidnap, stolen art, and other high crimes (and plentiful misdemeanours) unfolds. Jon Hamm's Fletch is poised and polished, his recurrent use of "five stars" part of an app-based update to a story now nearly 50 years old. Those stars include Kyle MacLachlan, Roy Wood Jr., and Marcia Gay Harden. Each of them plays a role that's been quite significantly changed from the source. Some of that is locative. A single line regarding MacLachlan's art expert becomes a running joke and a couple of references become a firework-filled set piece. Wood Jr's Inspector Monroe is a set of changes from Flynn who went on to three novels of his own. A whole back-story that has shades of LeCarré is elided in service of a series of jokes about sluggishness. The Countess DeGrassi changes her cocktail order and among many wise moves a variety of sexual sub-plots are substituted and escapades excised.

Greg Mottola is well known for his comedies. Superbad is now almost as old as its protagonists. Zev Borow co-writes, and as his many credits include the Lethal Weapon and Human Target shows he has history with adaptations. Translating a novel to screen is a difficult task, it's more than plot, it's feel. Villeneuve's Dune finds ways to be ponderous that Herbert's book can't, but works like Bullet Train and this find efficiencies from form that their prototypes lacked.

While retaining most of the source, it manages to run quickly through its paces. There's more than murder afoot: missing paintings, kidnap, inheritance, graffiti, cookery, and a wide variety of names. This isn't just light but unserious. One has the sense that those involved were having fun and watching it so did I. In taking something from the pay- to the smart-phone era there are opportunities for new jokes. One about "only vans" neatly replaces a whole bit of business about the Massachussetts Department of Motor Vehicles. A revelation that relies on the era's perception of lesbianism is replaced with a bit of arts-page digest that's not only more modern in its sensibility but more true to the character of Fletch and far funnier. The definition of 'bespoke' alone is worth the the corresponding punch in the face.

Having dug up a copy of the novel, variously in print and most recently in 2018, it cleaves closely to the source. In comparison to the Chevy Chase film there's markedly less gunplay, a significantly more sedate car-chase, and in swapping drug smuggling for dead bodies more of Columbo than Columbia. In an era where films seem intent on box office bombast a small scope isn't a sign of a lack of ambition but a focus on quality. As with Hypnotic, it could have been made in the Seventies, perhaps as much from technique as type. A small budget, a few big (enough) names in the cast, and tongue firmly in cheek.

I'd love to see more of these, even without Annie Mumolo as a nuisance neighbour. I'd love more of the Monroe Mysteries, even if it did require plenty of finding and replacing for their foundational Flynn files. I'd even watch it again, not least because even without the mystery there's still magic. Truth is, Confess, Fletch has a story to tell, and it's having a lot of fun on the way.