I had never seen Fletch in a theater or even on cable. In fact, I had not seen it until this week, when my TiVo picked it up off of one of those classic movie channels.
I had heard about the “classic” lines from the film, and was expecting to at least chuckle at some timeless humor, but as far as the funny went all I got was a “I guess you had to be there” feeling.
The basic plot is actually Hitchcockian in its intrigue: A reporter who is working undercover as a drug addict beach comber attracts the attention of a millionaire who makes him a proposition – he will pay the bum a large sum of money to kill him.
The basic plot is actually Hitchcockian in its intrigue: A reporter who is working undercover as a drug addict beach comber attracts the attention of a millionaire who makes him a proposition – he will pay the bum a large sum of money to kill him.
As a drama or thriller, it’s not a bad way to start a film. As a star-vehicle comedy, the outlandish plot doesn't work as well. Overall, I would say the movie isn’t as good as collective memory seems to indicate, but it isn’t as bad either.
No doubt, the execution is glaringly clunky in spots and most of the acting is sub-par, with the notable exception of George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) delivering a small but superb turn as one of Fletch’s beach buddies. It’s not the worst movie of its kind I’ve ever seen, though.
What’s most interesting about the film is what it did and didn’t do for its star, Chevy Chase. This was supposed to be the next run in Chase’s Hollywood career ladder. Coming off of his one season as a Saturday Night Live cast member as well as a string of solid box office hits (including Caddyshack, Seems Like Old Times, and National Lampoon’s Vacation), Chase was well on his way to super-stardom in a system designed to get promising comics from TV to the movies.
However, Chase’s monumental arrogance, drug addiction, and negative behavior toward his co-workers over the years was quickly using up any goodwill needed to sustain success. It’s safe to say that Chase, to put it mildly, rubbed more than a few of his peers the wrong way, and many of them to this day make no secret of their contempt for him.
It doesn’t help that Chase’s character in Fletch is anything but ego-deflating. His character is pretty much the prototype for the modern douchebag, a smug loser with absolutely no concept of social boundaries or obligations who always has a smart-ass answer for anything anybody says. Any other human beings who come into contact with him are just props to achieve his goals, whether it’s to solve a crime, eat fancy food, or get laid.
And yet somehow he’s always the smartest guy in the room, and the only one who seems to have any interest in finding out What’s Really Going On. His love interest, a rich socialite who is married to the guy who wants to be killed, giggles and coos at everything Fletch says and looks to him to protect her from a massive conspiracy despite the fact that she’s known him for two days.
It doesn’t help that Chase’s character in Fletch is anything but ego-deflating. His character is pretty much the prototype for the modern douchebag, a smug loser with absolutely no concept of social boundaries or obligations who always has a smart-ass answer for anything anybody says. Any other human beings who come into contact with him are just props to achieve his goals, whether it’s to solve a crime, eat fancy food, or get laid.
And yet somehow he’s always the smartest guy in the room, and the only one who seems to have any interest in finding out What’s Really Going On. His love interest, a rich socialite who is married to the guy who wants to be killed, giggles and coos at everything Fletch says and looks to him to protect her from a massive conspiracy despite the fact that she’s known him for two days.
Working folks (waiters, mechanics, secretaries) are always easily duped by some lie he comes up with off of the top of his head. His co-workers literally applaud when he walks into the office where he does no work and constantly shows up his clueless boss.
It makes sense that Fletch’s appeal as a cult film today is concentrated mainly among young men, especially college students, for whom Fletch’s ability to get over on anybody would seem like an ideal and feasible way to spend adulthood.
The movie’s basic setup, location and casting suggests that the producers were aiming to replicate the massive success of a film that came out a year earlier and also featured a former SNL player - Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy.
The movie’s basic setup, location and casting suggests that the producers were aiming to replicate the massive success of a film that came out a year earlier and also featured a former SNL player - Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy.
Both movies tell the story of a fish-out-of-water infiltrating the Upper Class in order to solve a crime and take The Man down a peg or two. When a young, hip black guy with Murphy’s supernova level of charisma does it, it works. The plot isn’t as effective when it’s a tall, good-looking white guy playing the “outsider.”
Nonetheless, there are several moments in this film where Chase comes across as a genuine movie star. It’s not in any specific scene, but there are several places where the camera hits him just right and Chase (who at that time was a handsome man with a solid screen presence) manages to look very much like the classic Hollywood leading men who dominated the silver screen in the ‘40s and ’50.
Nonetheless, there are several moments in this film where Chase comes across as a genuine movie star. It’s not in any specific scene, but there are several places where the camera hits him just right and Chase (who at that time was a handsome man with a solid screen presence) manages to look very much like the classic Hollywood leading men who dominated the silver screen in the ‘40s and ’50.
It’s very easy to see what Hollywood executives saw in him. But then, just as quickly, he delivers one of his self-satisfied frat-boy quips and we’re back to Fletch Land.
Fletch did well in theaters and on video, but it pretty much marked the apex of Chase’s career as a leading man. The age of the above-it-all wiseacre as film comedy subject would soon evolve (or devolve, depending on your tastes) into the severely arrested adolescent hijinks of Adam Sandler and Chris Farley and then the hapless beta-males of the Judd Apatow empire.
Fletch did well in theaters and on video, but it pretty much marked the apex of Chase’s career as a leading man. The age of the above-it-all wiseacre as film comedy subject would soon evolve (or devolve, depending on your tastes) into the severely arrested adolescent hijinks of Adam Sandler and Chris Farley and then the hapless beta-males of the Judd Apatow empire.
Chase’s inability or unwillingness to branch out into different material while at the same time refusing to display anything more than various degrees of contempt for others in his acting is why his oeuvre as a lead is limited to good-to-passable comedies, where he appears in cameo roles or as part of an ensemble, while his best and most successful work has been as Clark Griswold in the Vacation series (where his smart-aleck WASP persona IS the joke) and recently as an elderly college student in the NBC sitcom Community, where his senile, un-PC wisecracks are met by his fellow students with derision and pity rather than fawning admiration.
Whose to say what would have happened if during the last three decades Chase had collaborated with more skilled writers and directors. He might have become another Bill Murray or Steve Martin, comic actors who went on from their SNL spotlight to become appreciated for more than just being funny. Chase has always traded in a certain kind of funny, a kind that doesn’t wear as well as it did 25 years ago.
Whose to say what would have happened if during the last three decades Chase had collaborated with more skilled writers and directors. He might have become another Bill Murray or Steve Martin, comic actors who went on from their SNL spotlight to become appreciated for more than just being funny. Chase has always traded in a certain kind of funny, a kind that doesn’t wear as well as it did 25 years ago.
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