Director: Michael Ritchie
Cast: Chevy Chase, Joe Don Baker, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson
Have I Seen it Before: Most definitely. Here’s an odd moment of stupidity from my past: I’m at an opening night screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). When Frodo (Elijah Wood) identifies himself as Mr. Underhill, I am the only voice in the theater who barks out a beat of laughter. I did this because I was reminded of this film.
Did I Like It: If a movie star’s greatest film is ultimately that movie for which they were most present during their performance, I have a very dim view for any other film being Chase’s greatest. There are any number of films (and more than a few episodes of my beloved Community) where he is demonstrably asleep at the wheel, and I’m not even entirely sure any of the various Clark Griswold outings would count.
Clark Griswold is a put upon family man, Fletch (or at least, the Fletch presented in this film, as opposed to the Fletch of numerous Gregory McDonald) is a quip machine who is perpetually in matters just over his head. Now, which one of these men do you think is more firmly in Chase’s wheelhouse? I’ll wait for my answer.
This is not to say that the film is without—or even manages to avoid being riddled with—flaws. Is anyone buying the idea that Tim Matheson and Chevy Chase are the same build, and that that is enough to prop up the plot here? It was enough to work in the McDonald novel, but I would have liked to have seen a little more-than-perfunctory work on adapting the novel, so as to not let such a glaring plot hole run throughout the entire proceedings. Also, as much as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is (with his Sherlockian streak) a delightful and welcome presence in a comedy film, the basketball fantasy sequence could have been pulled right out, the film wouldn’t have suffered, and we would have been speared a fearful portent of the comedic dead weight Chase was doomed to become.