"I.M. Fletcher" (John Hamm) arrives at a posh apartment procured for him by his aristocratic Italian girlfriend to discover the body of a strange young woman lying on the floor. He calls the cops and is soon the prime suspect of the laconically effective "Insp. Monroe" (Roy Wood Jr.) and his enthusiastic new sidekick "Griz" (Ayden Mayeri). It seems to "Fletch" that the only way he can prove his innocence is to use his legendary investigative journalism skills to get to the bottom of it all. Meantime, his gal at home is trying to fend off her grasping step-mother after her father is kidnapped and the ransom is a Picasso painting that is one of nine that was stolen from their home. Maybe the solution to these mysteries lies in finding the paintings? That trail introduces him to the rather germo-phobe art broker "Horan" (Kyle MacLachlan) and soon an intricate game of cat and mouse is afoot! Essentially this is all about Hamm, and for the first half hour he manages to amusingly, and quite deftly, bounce his character off the others - including the glamorous "Andi" (Lorenza Izzo); her lively nemesis "Countess Sylvia" (Marcia Gay Harden) and his rather flakey next door neighbour "Eve" (Annie Mulolo). That characterisation quickly starts to wear a bit thin, though, and the latter parts of this comedy are pretty derivative and well-travelled with a few set-piece comedy enterprises that start to look more and more like a few conjoined episodes of a television sitcom. Hamm has good timing with his delivery, and his one scene with the scatty Mumolo stands out for me, but otherwise we've seen this all before. Agatha Christie it isn't!
