[From a comment thread assessment posted late last night]:

I paid to see Greg Mottola & Jon Hamm’s Fletch film this evening. The title is Confess, Fletch but it really, REALLY should be called Fletch Whatevs, and that’s not a putdown in the slightest. I counted five people in the theatre (AMC Danbury) but I liked it. It’s certainly a much better, more adult-minded Fletch package than whatever was provided by those Chevy Chase films in the ‘80s.

Fletch Whatevs is an agreeably quirky, mildly entertaining time killer…a low-key, loose-shoe Boston runaround stolen-art caper thang. It’s all jizz-fizz and that’s fine. I had a better-than-okay time but why couldn’t the AMC guys have heated the popcorn?

Hamm is totally cool and knows exactly how to project the right kind of laid-back Fletch attitude. (His personality mantra is — you’ll never guess this — “whatevs.” Which is fairly close to the personality mantra that Elliott Gould swore by in The Long Goodbye, or “ladies, it’s okay with me.”) The supporting cast (Marcia Gay Harden, John Slattery and Kyle MacLachlan are standouts but partly because their names are easier to remember as I write this) take their cues from Hamm.

There are only three problems. Okay, make that four. One, Hamm lifts his bare feet right in front of the camera in one early scene — a big no-no in the HE manual. Two, he’s gained a little weight since the Mad Men heyday. (He could’ve easily tread-milled himself back into Don Draper if he wanted to.) And three, Hamm should have put mousse or Brylcream in his hair.

The fourth thing is that Fletch Whatevs should have spent more time in Rome. I really love it there.

I’m not really “complaining” because there’s no point in dismissing such a cool, witty, unassuming jack-off movie with several spunky, spirited and relatable supporting characters. The movie is good company in an inconsequential hang-out way. No bad things happen, and there are no energy drops or pacing issues except for a single strange, overly broad scene with Annie Mumolo…don’t ask.

Incidentally: Somebody said there was only enough money to shoot for a single day in Rome. I’m not sure I believe that. There’s a breezy montage sequence of a helmeted Fletch scootering all over town. (The helmet looks dorky.) There’s a two-minute dialogue scene overlooking some ancient Roman ruins. There’s a chatty cafe sitdown scene (Hamm orders a Negroni) in Piazza Navona. They didn’t shoot all that in just one day. Two or three days, I’m guessing.