And now for something completely different…

This may be equal parts an introduction at a meeting for a twelve-step program and simply an overstated brag about a pointless personal preference…but here it goes: I am a big fan of Irwin M. Fletcher.

By unofficial count, I have seen the first movie offering well over a hundred times. It was among the favorites of my college buddies and was very often put on the VCR when we returned home after closing time on the weekends. So, for a bit better accuracy, let’s say that I’ve seen the beginning well over a hundred times and the whole thing somewhere between seventy and eighty times. Regardless, we all knew and used the best lines on a regular basis (“Hey, don’t talk to me that way, assface. I don’t work for you yet“, “Very well. I’ll have a Bloody Mary, a steak sandwich and a… steak sandwich“, … don’t get me started.) When Fletch Lives came out in 1989, we similarly consumed every syllable of that one too. Again, by unofficial count, I’ve seen it forty to fifty times.

So it was, until late 2018: I was comfortably happy in my greater ignorance that Chevy Chase was Fletch and that was that. Then someone at a work even informed me that I. M. Fletcher was based on a character in a book…in fact, a whole series of books by Gregory Mcdonald. So, now being more of a reader than I was back then, I set out to read…the first four volumes over the next year. In that exercise, Fletch the character became more than just Chevy Chase and clearly somewhat different. And I liked it.

Then, last September, I came across a movie that had quietly been added to one of my steaming services: Fletch, Confess with Jon Hamm in the starring role. Well, I was skeptical from the start…and, being the cheap bastard that I am, initially refused to pay the $19.99 required to watch it. But a few weeks later I did give in. I did enjoy it, it was entertaining, and Hamm was OK. But it was new…not the same stream of now memorized Chevy Chase lines that the original two movies have been reduced to in my mind and not the over the top dialogue from the books. If kind of underwhelmed.

A few months later I watched it on a plane to somewhere and I enjoyed it more than the first viewing. I was catching little things that had slipped by before…well, maybe not slipped by, but were noticed less because I had been concentrating more on the “fresh” story line and not on the character. I came home and told my wife that this really is a good movie. (She stared at me with a blank face. Evidently, she had slept through that first viewing at home and didn’t remember “us” even watching it.)

This brings this telling of the story to last night: I watched Fletch, Confess for the third time. (And the wife watched it for the first.) I laughed/giggled even more…trending toward what I loved about the originals. It was really good and I now firmly believe that Jon Hamm pulled it off quite well. It also comes across more like the book dialogue than the one-way liners from the Chevy Chase films.

As a fan of Irwin M. Fletcher, I’d like to see more of this…with Hamm would be great, or even with others in the role. I think there could be a small franchise in this going forward. Unfortunately, it did little at the box office – I only saw it listed in the theaters for one weekend with little to no marketing and “hype” – so I strongly suspect this is the end of the line. That is unfortunate: the world needs more of people like I.M. Fletcher.