Ruining Fletch

If you’ve never seen Fletch, stop here and go watch it. It’s a great comedy and one of the rare cases of a movie being better than the book. Assuming everyone reading past this point has seen it, you’re familiar with the plot: businessman Alan Stanwyck hires down-on-his-luck investigative journalist Irwin R. Fletcher to kill him. Stanwyck says he’s dying of cancer and wants Fletch to kill him so Stanwyck’s wife can collect a sizable insurance settlement, but it turns out Stanwyck wants to use Fletch’s body to fake his own death so he can double-cross the corrupt cop he’s been smuggling drugs for and fly off to South America. Instead, Fletch figures it all out and stops Stanwyck and the corrupt chief of police and walks away with Stanwyck’s life and wife.

But what if that’s not the story at all? What if Alan Stanwyck is one of the noblest heroes to ever grace the silver screen? What if he was dying of cancer and was worried his wife could never move on after his death, that she’d live alone for 40 or 50 years missing him? So he searches around for the perfect replacement: a noble guy who’s recently gone through a divorce and is short of cash. Stanwyck then proceeds to:

• Concoct an incredibly elaborate double bluff that results in his wife both collecting the insurance and being happy he’s dead
• Knowing he has nothing to lose, he runs his own sting on the chief of police to clean up the drug problems in his town
• Leads Fletch to clean up both the shady land deals and illegal mattress dumping in Stanwyck’s home town of Provo, Utah
• Makes sure Fletch gets a full physical including a prostate check to ensure Fletch doesn’t suffer the same fate as Stanwyck
• Finds time in all of this to plan a fantastic honeymoon/ elopement for his wife and Fletch