Review of Fletch (1985) by Jeremy B — 19 Dec 2016

Chevy Chase stars as Fletch in the comedy Fletch. Fletch is an undercover newspaper reporter that is posing as a bum on the beaches of Los Angeles trying to crack a story involving drug trafficking. In the process of doing this, a rich man approaches him asks him to kill him to help his family collect insurance money. He is dying of bone cancer, and will be dead soon anyway.

Fletch instantly starts investigating the man, only to find that he does not have bone cancer at all, and is perfectly healthy. This brings up the question of why the man has such a request. The problem is he is already under pressure by his boss to turn in a story regarding the drug trafficking at the beach. Because the man who asked him to kill him wants this done in a few days, this gives him limited time to do the investigation and solve both cases. Further investigation points to scandal among police officers and the chief himself, but needs to find some hard evidence.

Fletch is paints a pretty dark and lengthy investigation. The comedic antics of Chase almost seem out of place and do not outweigh the investigation which makes this a hard sell as a comedy. Even though he has a few disguises and some one-liners, they all do not really particularly hit the funny bone. Most of the comedy comes from his multiple disguises, accents, and there is a dream sequence where he becomes a Los Angeles Laker that seems out of place. I enjoyed this movie far more as investigative cop drama than I did as a comedy. The tone of the movie Fletch is similar to many other 80s movies of its time such as Beverly Hills Cop series with the exception that he works alone is not a real cop. Overall Fletch is a good movie, but is more misguided.

As a comedy.

-12.19.2016.