Confess, Fletch. 2022. USA. Directed by Greg Mottola. Written by Mottola and Zev Borow, from a novel by Gregory McDonald. With Jon Hamm, Lorenza Izzo, Marcia Gay Harden, Roy Wood, Jr., Kyle MacLachlan, John Slattery, Lucy Punch. 98 min.
Without a whiff of nostalgia, Greg Mottola’s lightly comic crime thriller replicates the modest proportions and raffish appeal of a Universal programmer from the 1970s—the sort of thing that would star Walter Matthau or George Peppard, and reliably appear every few weeks at your neighborhood theater. With his TV experience, Jon Hamm knows how to slide in lightly and quickly and win the audience’s affection; his I. M. “Fletch” Fletcher—an investigative journalist turned private detective—is a sly operator who hides behind a frat-boy ebullience. This time, Fletch is thrust into a bafflingly complex situation involving stolen paintings, a kidnapped Italian businessman, and a dead body in a Boston townhouse. Mottola, a master of ensemble casting (The Daytrippers, Adventureland) gets detailed performances all the way without crowding the frame or clouding the plot.