Jon Hamm finally found a movie that fits his knack for comedy

polygon.com:

In the spring-stepped new mystery-comedy Confess, Fletch, Jon Hamm faces what may be his greatest acting challenge ever: playing a man who disdains shoes. Granted, the man who became famous as Don Draper on Mad Men hasn’t always been as well-dressed in movies as he was on that near-perfect show. In Confess, Fletch, as “investigative reporter of some repute” Irwin Maurice Fletcher, he’s still further afield than usual from Hamm’s smooth image. Hamm has played goofy roles in cameos and Saturday Night Live sketches, and he’s parodied his own image as Gabriel in Good Omens. But in movies, he tends to be unsmiling and weary, often a little menacing. In Confess, Fletch, he takes off his shoes and socks at every opportunity and makes a pet issue out of what he sees as society’s pro-footwear propaganda — all as he’s suspected of murder.

The running gag about Fletch’s perpetual barefootedness is one of the few moments where Confess, Fletch saddles its leading actor with material that feels a little too shticky for his comedic instincts to sell. Otherwise, the movie is a belated cinematic star turn for a performer who has tended to pick and choose supporting roles, rather than pursuing George Clooney-style TV-to-movie prestige. Maybe Hamm’s movie career hasn’t actually been as underdressed as it looks. Maybe it’s just been missing the kind of insight writer-director Greg Mottola brings to building a story around what Hamm does best.

Mottola has directed Hamm once before, in the little-seen but funny comedy Keeping Up With the Joneses. There, the star leaned into his man’s-man image, playing a super-spy improbably posing as a suburban neighbor to a genuinely mundane couple played by Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher. Joneses has