On the upside, Chevy Chase is perfect for the role of the sharp and sarcastic reporter-turned-amateur-detective Fletch from Gregory MacDonald’s novel. This is Chase’s Beverly Hills Cop, complete with a Harold Faltermeyer score and a sun-bleached Southern California setting. On the downside, the film knocks all of the edges off of MacDonald’s work for the sake of a routine comedy vehicle for Chase. I hate to be that book-comparison bore, but sometimes you can’t help it. The movie botches MacDonald’s best laughs. For example, a running gag in the book is that Fletch tells constant lies and assumes different identities throughout his investigation (it’s a smart method for digging into the affairs of secretive people without being noticed). In MacDonald’s original, Fletch’s assumed names are all made-up—and are either comically plain or so hard to pronounce that no one remembers them—while the movie goes for more clumsy jokes as Chase either names himself after famous people or wears wacky costumes. The deadpan gets consistently replaced with a sledgehammer under Michael Ritchie’s direction. It’s a shame because, as originally written, Fletch is a great vehicle for a comic actor who can get laughs without mugging. Everyone thinks Fletch is a loser who misses deadlines at his newspaper, can’t pay his alimony and who fits in a little too well in the beach bum junkie scene among whom he works undercover on a story about the secret drug trade, but his brain is razor-sharp. The film never manages to reconcile the two sides of the character. Sometimes it wants him to be smart, sometimes it wants him to slip on yet another banana peel. Meanwhile, the mystery doesn’t help because it’s secondary to the star showcase. There’s no danger here, no pressure. The Fletch in this film could give up on the case, lay on that beach and drop out with all of the rest and you wouldn’t care.