Fletch (1985) (The Jane Doe Edition)

Loosely based on the book by Gregory McDonald, director Michael Ritchie's FLETCH is a laugh-out-loud comedy that features a classic performance by Chevy Chase, who stars as Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher, a crack investigative journalist who goes undercover for a story about possible connections between the L.A. police department and the local drug trade. He gets derailed when a Santa Monica businessman, Alan Stanwyk (Tim Matheson), mistakes him for a homeless man and offers him $50,000 to commit a murder. The man claims to have terminal bone cancer but can't commit suicide if he wants his family to collect on his insurance policy, so he wants Fletch to do his dirty work. Fletch pretends to accept the offer and finds that it leads him deeper into the heart of his own investigation. Working from a crackling script by Andrew Bergman, Chase relishes every line of dialogue written for his goofy, master-of-disguise character, making FLETCH one of the most influential and oft-quoted comedies of the 1980s.