Fletch (1985)

Chevy Chase is in nearly every scene of “Fletch,” a guy-and-a-dame gumshoe spoof done far better and deeper in “The Long Goodbye” a near-decade earlier. But this has a slice of Woodward/Bernstein-tweaking journalism. Chase is “L.A.Times” reporter Irwin Fletcher, a master-of-disguise undercover star reporter with a Jane Doe byline. His recent gig has him on the path of drug-dealing beach bums until he’s sucked into a murder-for-hire scam that will take him all the way to exotic Idaho. The whole plot is a screwball joke. There’s a good deal of laughs as Chase dons disguises or just balls-out improvises his way through interviews, mostly with dumb people, snatching and stealing info for his story. I wish the film had more spark or life, but it happily glides from start to finish, just as Fletch glides through deadlines. Chase’s seemingly effortless deadpan work is riotous. B+