Went out to the cinema twice this weekend, both times to see comedic mysteries.

Saturday, I saw Confess, Fletch the third film to be adapted from the series of novels centered on Investigative Reporter I.M ‘Fletch” Fletcher, (Fletch and Fletch, Lives in the 80s both starring Chevy Chase.) with Jon Hamm as Fletch.

Fletch finds himself. while trying to recover stolen art as part of a bizarre kidnapping, suddenly a suspect in a young woman’s murder. Dodging Boston police and an assortment of eccentric characters Fletch untangles the confusing case while retaining his own mysterious secrets and motivations.

Hamm worked better for me in this role than Chevy Chase, but that may simply be my own bias at work. I have never been a real fan of Chase’s comedy and tend to find most of his project forgettable. Over all I found the film a perfectly acceptable hour and a half diversion that kept me entertained and amused. I hope that Hamm is given more opportunities to play this character in further feature films.

Sunday my sweetie-wife and I went out to catch a screening of See How They Run, a comedic take of Agatha Christie mysterious set in the early fifties around the stage production of The Mousetrap. The film mixes reality. Richard Attenborough starring in the play and the production incredible longevity as a stage production. When the director of a proposed film adaptation is murdered and his corpse left on the stage Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and novice constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) are thrown together to solve the mystery.

Self-aware and playing at the 4th wall See How They Run hangs multiple hats on worn tropes of the mystery genre but sadly for me most of the humor provoked only smiles and rarely laughter. (Though the first flash-back was actually funny.) Adding to my inability to lose myself in the story is the cast of Harris Dickinson as Richard Attenborough. Dickinson is s shade over six feet one in height while Attenborough, perhaps best known to modern audiences as John. Hammond from the Jurassic Park franchise, was just 5’7″. Dickinson towering over the rest of the cast continually pulled me about of the film’s reality. But the movie’s biggest failure was that the comedy simply wasn’t funny enough. Rockwell, a performer that makes scenery chewing a treat for audiences, gave a restrained and quite performance. Ronan continued to be charming and a delight to watch but the plot needed to be centered on her if she were to carry it and it wasn’t.