Jon Hamm Is Profoundly Miscast in the Nevertheless Winning 'Confess, Fletch'

I’ve seen the first two Fletch movies, and I like the first two Fletch movies, although I do not feel any personal connection to them. I will also concede that, though Chevy Chase may be a trash human being, he was a very good Fletch.

I do, however, feel a strong attachment to Jon Hamm. I’ve seen basically everything he’s ever made (including that baseball movie, the weird Lebanese Civil War movie, and I’ve even listened to his mediocre scripted podcast). Jon Hamm is good in dramas. He’s good in comedies. He is not, however, good at playing Fletch. He dresses like Fletch. He says the things that Fletch says, but he doesn’t deliver the lines like Fletch would. He feels like a stand-in, someone doing line-readings of Fletch while the director blocks the scene. It is bizarre — not just because Jon Hamm doesn’t look right wearing wrinkled pants, shirts he doesn’t tuck in, and L.A. Lakers caps while taking every opportunity to remove his shoes and socks — but because it doesn’t even seem like he’s trying to be Fletch.

In fact, there are a number of lines in Confess, Fletch that aren’t funny onscreen, but they are funny if you can hear in your mind the delivery of Chevy Chase, or Ryan Reynolds, or Jason Sudeikis, or — my personal choice — Glenn Howerton. I watched Confess, Fletch with my kid, who has never even heard of Fletch, and while he was mostly unimpressed, when I told him that Chevy Chase (whom he knows only from Community) originated the role, he could hear the same lines in Chase’s voice, too.

It’s like the Earth has been slightly tilted off its axis and some good-looking rando has been shifted into the role. There is no zip. No wry zaniness. At one point, Hamm’s Fletch smells something off-putting and makes a face, and you can almost see Chase make a comedically exaggerated look of disgust. With Hamm, he’s playing it straight: He just looks like he’s disgusted.

In Confess, Fletch, Hamm plays Irwin M. ‘Fletch’ Fletcher, based on the character from the Gregory Mcdonald novels. In the opening scene, he walks into a Boston apartment, finds the body of a dead woman, and calls the police. Detectives Monroe (Ron Wood, Jr.) and Griz (Ayden Mayeri) arrive, and begin to question the most obvious suspect: Fletch. He deflects their suspicion and ultimately enters — against their wishes — into an unofficial partnership with them in an attempt to solve the murder.

The murder seems to be connected to the abduction of the father (Robert Picardo) of Fletch’s Italian girlfriend, Angela (Lorenza Izzo), and a stolen painting eventually connected to an art dealer played by Kyle MacLachlan. The investigation takes Fletch through a number of goofy encounters with the drug-addicted neighbor (Annie Mumolo), a drug-addicted ex of Fletch’s girlfriend, the flirtatious wife (Marcia Gay Harden) of the abducted father, and Fletch’s old boss at the newspaper, played by John Slattery. All of the sequences feel as though Jon Hamm were inserted against his will into a zany ’80s comedy. It never makes much sense; director Greg Mottola (Adventureland, Superbad) seems trapped between updating the character and staying true to the original ’80s iteration.

It’s discordant, and yet, it’s not bad, either. It’s honestly refreshing to watch a quaint ’80s comedy set in 2022, and while Hamm never masters the role of Fletch — he never even comes close — if you can get over that, he’s pretty good playing this other character named Fletch who is definitely not Fletch. Fletch is hapless. There’s nothing hapless about Jon Hamm. He’s Jon Hamm! His attempts at playing hapless are like watching Rachael Leigh Cook playing the unattractive frump in She’s All That. Just take off the glasses, Jon Hamm! We know who you are.

Nevertheless, the supporting cast is fun, particularly Griz, the put-upon junior detective who does all the work and gets none of the credit. Mumolo, doing her best impression of Carol Kane, is hysterical in her one big scene where she attempts to cook a meal while high off her gourd, although she seems to be in a completely different movie from Hamm (Honestly, no Hamm character would ever kick his bare feet up on someone’s desk, and if he did, no one would look at him aghast). Marcia Gay Harden, likewise, is low-key delightful as a vaguely European countess who seems to have walked off the set of Get Smart.

All of which is to say: I didn’t hate it. I even kind of enjoyed it, although I didn’t understand it. I will give Hamm this much credit; Ryan Reynolds, Jason Sudeikis, Glenn Howerton, or Zach Braff would’ve tried to do an impression of Chevy Chase’s Fletch. Hamm cuts a character uniquely his own. Whether you like that character or not, however, will be a matter of personal taste. Even if you do like him, it will take at least an hour before you can stop hearing the echo of Chase in every Jon Hamm exchange.

Confess, Fletch is currently available on VOD. Do not spend $20 on a rental, although it might be worth watching when the rental price drops to $5 or it’s picked up by a streamer.