Fletch Lives
Dir: Michael Ritchie
1989
**
Chevy Chase's original 1985 Fletch was an unbalanced mix of comedy and drama, the drama not being that dramatic and the comedy not being that funny. It worked (just) and was popular (a bit) because everybody likes Chevy Chase. The same applies for the 1989 sequel; Fletch Lives. Somewhere between Philip Marlowe and a smug Groucho Marx, Fletch is more inappropriate than funny and more often than not, a little offensive. The idea that he's a master of disguises is also never really used to its full potential, the film asks the audience to take it seriously one minute and is then breaking into musical fantasy the next. It's too muddled for me to really get into it and just too odd to look away. Odd and very much of its time.