Michael's Movie Grade: B
A surprisingly funny modern-day update of the Fletch character.
Fletch was not a franchise that I personally excepted to ever come back with a new movie. When I heard there was going to be a new Fletch film, I had very low expectations thinking this would be a cheap cash in on people who have nostalgia for the Chevy Chase films. I was definitely pleasantly surprised to find that this is actually a pretty funny movie. This movie has a different take on the Fletch character than the Chevy Chase films (in fact Fletch doesn't use any disguises in this movie) and that is the perfect way to approach this film. As talented as Jon Hamm (who both stars in and produced this movie) is no one could do what Chevy Chase always did so well. This movie is instead constructed very well to Hamm. He truly shines in this role and is simply a delight to watch. He delivers all the great Fletch wise cracks perfectly and when the film calls for physical slapstick he certainly delivers. He may not be Chevy Chase, but he still shows that he was perfectly cast. The wild antics in this film may be toned down from the previous movies in the franchise, but there is still a lot of great humor. The one liners are wonderful here as are the great running jokes such as Fletch's "mastery" of the Italian language. The physical slapstick is also often fantastic and the scene in the tunnel as well as the fireworks scene cracked me up. The mystery element is also pretty good. While this may not be one of the great movie mysteries, it does its job quite well and has enough good twists and turns to be involving.
Unfortunately as great as Fletch is, pretty much all the supporting players are simply one note caricatures for Fletch to play against or to move along the mystery. None of them are that memorable and often times when they get their own comic moments, they can fall flat.
All in all this movie is a pleasant surprise.
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