A_Different_Drummer Review of Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Do they still give you marks for effort?

[6/10 · 5 December 2013]

MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN was actually a really good novel written by HF Saint in 1987. It is typical of our film culture that many reviewers just assumed that this was some sort of special vehicle designed for Chevy after his middling success with Fletch...? Now (sorry for the lecture, but facts are facts) in my review of the first Fletch film here on IMDb I tried my hardest to point out that Fletch was ground-breaking literature by a great writer and was never written as a comedy; and was certainly never written with Chevy Chase in mind. (But I am sure the author cashed his check anyway!) You gotta figure that by the time the Fletch franchise imploded, Chevy's agent was SERIOUSLY looking for something to reestablish the actor as a lead in a romantic comedy, one that did not involve false teeth and playing an inbred hillbilly. So in the strange bizarro world that passes for Hollywood logic, the next step was to take a serious novel like this and see if Chevy could make it fly? They tried. It's close to the book, which is high praise for Hollywood. Hannah is always fun to watch on screen. And Sam Neill steals every scenes that is not nailed down. But the film never really gels as entertainment and, as others here have noted, Chevy's film career was was starting to run on fumes.