Confess, Fletch (Greg Mottola, 2022) (Patreon)

A breezy comedy with snappy dialogue? In this economy? Obviously Paramount thought no, unceremoniously dumping Confess, Fletch into theaters and VOD with nary a promotional peep. I could go on and on decrying this decision and what it tells us about the State of Movies Today. ("So yeah, this Fletch guy....could he maybe wear a cape?") But this would just lead to grousing about how "they don't make 'em like they used to," even though apparently they do, they just don't know what to do with 'em. George Clooney would never have become a star in this climate, let alone Cary Grant.

So yes, Confess, Fletch is a breath of fresh air, since it follows its own comedic rhythms and actually relies for its success on words thoughtfully delivered by actors -- a truly novel concept. I have never read the Gregory Mcdonald books, but by all accounts they are playfully snarky, edging just slightly into cynicism but never outright meanness. If this is the case, then of course Chevy Chase was all wrong to play this guy, but then back in the 80s his bankability led a lot of folks to overlook Chevy's fundamental unpleasantness. (If you watch the Vacation films now, you can see that Chase couldn't really suppress his feelings of superiority even when playing an average-guy doof like Clark Griswold. He truly was the Dane Cook of his era.)

Hamm has always conveyed a demeanor almost entirely opposite of 80s Chase. Where Chevy is a trust fund baby who wants to convince you he's also handsome and charming, Hamm is more hard-bitten, casually roguish, behaving most of the time as if he's blissfully unaware that (as they said on 30 Rock) he "looks like a cartoon pilot." But of course, he does know, and will furtively trade on The Face when the suavity and wisecracks don't get the job done. His Fletch (or, if you prefer, Flessshh) embodies a nice-guy failson, someone we ought to hate for coasting so blithely on his cis-male white hunkola privilege, but is so emotionally insubstantial that there's no point hating him. He is everything the Woke Era is meant to despise, but he's so toothless that he poses no threat at all. He's smug like a precocious child, not an oppressor.

In a way, this makes Fletch the perfect foil for our times. As Confess, Fletch acknowledges in its conclusion, only someone who looks like Hamm could so effortlessly elbow his way into a yacht club, rubbing shoulders with wealthy collectors of canvases by Picasso and Klee. Det. "Slo-Mo" Monroe (Roy Wood, Jr.) notes this discrepancy in a forlorn way, while his ambiguously ethnic trainee Griz (Ayden Mayeri) is more overt in her revulsion. But like a good doofus, Fletch takes it on the chin, acknowledging his all-American hall pass with a jovial "yeah, what can you do?" 

And this is one of the most interesting things about Confess, Fletch, quite apart from its crackling wit and expert timing. Hamm's Fletch gives the finger to current culture-wars discourse by offering a Third Way for white masculinity. Neither sheepish and apologetic, nor stridently knuckle-dragging and Trumpist, Fletch is an affable dude who was born on third base but would rather streak buck-naked across the field. This film is vaguely anarchist. I dig it.