Chapter 27 (2007)

Wonderful Movie

good back-story, and good acting

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Reviewers say this could have been "so much better" but they don't say how. Probably with an entrance of the Doors at the end playing "Soul Kitchen". It's like the movie The Seventh Seal. It's a great movie because of the subject and the way it is presented. I read as much as I could about Chapman including Let Me Drag You Down but this movie ,in a way, is more informative about why he was killed. It won't give you all the answers but it will show you what goes on inside the mind of a killer who wants to be a celebrity. I enjoyed the part where the photographer and the doorman Jose have a conversation with Chapman just before he stays for the final shooting. Jared Leto does a tremendous job of acting. When Mark Chapman reads the Playboy interview with Lennon you can feel that this is the point where he decides to go all the way. I read that interview at the time it came out and thought what an asshole, but so what? I knew the Beatles couldn't be what they were because they would have stayed together if that was all it took. I liked Lennon and thought he was the cool one when he was with the Beatles but that kind of success when your young is not easy to shake off when your older. I wish he was still around though because he was so outspoken it would have been interesting to see what he would have been saying today. Of course he didn't want be a radical anymore so he wouldn't have turned into the Dude.

I've only seen Jared Leto in two film roles, "Dallas Buyers Club" and now this one. Two more diametrically opposed movie characters would be hard to come up with. Leto puts a lot into his craft and he's to be commended for a job well done here. He captured I think, the essence of a tortured soul who found expression in the murder of a music icon. Based on only my knowledge of the events reported in the news at the time and on what I've read about Mark David Chapman following his capture, the movie seemed to offer a fairly accurate representation of Chapman's convoluted thinking in his quest for notoriety. His lapses into and out of paranoia and obsession turned deadly on the night of December 8th, 1980, and for anyone around at the time, the shot that killed Lennon reverberated around the world in much the same manner as the ones that felled the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. I don't agree with a handful of reviewers who lament the movie as a glorification of Chapman, that just seems convoluted to me. A representation of historical fact tastefully done can help educate entire new generations of people who hadn't even been born yet, and act as an impetus for further research for those so inclined.

"Chapter 27" tells the true story of Mark David Chapman, and the three days leading up to his assassination of John Lennon. He put four bullets into one of the most beloved and respected rock and roll icons in the world, changed history for the worst, and after the movie is done, we still don't quite understand why he did it.The most frustrating part of "Chapter 27" is that it is ambitious enough to take on a compelling true story, but somehow manages the drag the story's pacing by weighing it down with blatant egomania. It starts out on December 6, 1980, with Chapman (Jared Leto) taking a taxi into New York City. Throughout the movie, Chapman goes from hanging out in front of The Dakota, where John Lennon lived, to his hotel room and back again, stopping occasionally in insignificant places in between.The problem with this movie is not its historical accuracy. Did Chapman spend these three days meandering around before shooting Lennon? Yes, he probably did. What I want to know, however, is at least a little bit about Chapman's background. Chapman just hanging out in his hotel room is about as interesting as Ted Bundy eating a bowl of cereal. I want to know more about his obsession with the Beatles. Why did he choose to target Lennon as opposed to Paul McCartney, George Harrison, or even Ringo Starr for that matter? You can look it up, but you're never given a clear answer in this film.Plus, I really wanted to know a little bit about his life in Hawaii, where he lived before the shooting. He was married, so why did he cheat on his wife with a prostitute? Obviously there was something amiss in his marriage, but the movie only hints at the problem, not the cause.Perhaps most of all, Chapman obviously sees a lot of Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger's immortal character from "The Catcher In The Rye", in himself. After all, throughout the film, Leto quotes Caulfield verbatim, from asking a cab driver about how fish survive the winter, to dismissing movies as being "so fake". However, what is never explained, and what needed to be, is this: WHAT DOES HOLDEN CAULFIELD HAVE TO DO WITH KILLING SOMEONE?I happen to love "The Catcher In The Rye". In fact, I've read it twice, and I never came across any line in that book that suggested Caulfield wanted to shoot someone. Caulfield wasn't perfect, but he certainly was no killer. Obviously Chapman misinterpreted the book, but what this movie failed to explain was what part, or parts, of the novel Chapman fixated upon to get that message.All these things are frustrating because this movie should have been better. Jared Leto, after all, is a really good actor who has been in some great films ("Fight Club" (1999), "American Psycho" (2000), "Requium For a Dream" (2000)). In this movie, he went the route that Robert De Niro took in "Raging Bull" (1980) by intentionally putting on 60 pounds for this one role. He also adopts a creepy, whispering Southern accent heard throughout the film. Unfortunately, although Chapman was a true egomaniac in real life, Leto's attempt to portray him seems too vain. As a result, his performance comes off as self-aggrandizing as his stint in 30 Seconds To Mars.Lindsay Lohan, surprisingly enough, is really good in this movie as Jude, a Beatles fan who is more level headed than Chapman was. Jude was probably a fictional character, as I can't find any information as to whether a woman named Jude actually existed even on Wikipedia. Still, when the movie ended, I wanted to know what happened to her. I already know what became of Chapman.The film's final mistake at the end is fatal. It assumes that the climax, Chapman shooting Lennon, is its own reward. You see Leto point a gun, you hear a gunshot, and the screen goes black. You see some real life footage of fans mourning Lennon interspersed with newsreels from the time and an admittedly startling shot of Leto, as Chapman, looking directly into the camera talking about how he's the victim. What you don't see, however, is Chapman sitting down on the sidewalk reading "The Catcher In The Rye" before the police apprehend him. Chapman actually did this, and I find it more fascinating than anything. He didn't run away, and he could have. That fact alone speaks more about Chapman's egomania than Leto's gradually tired voice-over monologues ever could.Even worse is the on-screen epilogue, which states that Chapman is still in prison and is now a born-again Christian. Well, isn't that great! He was moronic enough to kill a rock and roll legend, and now he's repenting. Whoop dee doo! Such an uninspired epilogue is key to understanding what went wrong in this film: it never tells us anything we don't already know. Don't the filmmakers know that Chapman was a fool who played it cool by making the world a little colder?

Here is a powerful portrait of the tortured and alienated man who stalked and killed John Lennon.Jared Leto is scary as the alternately withdrawn and clingy, slow-talking loner John Chapman. Also excellent is Lindsay Lohan as a Beatles groupie who is slow to pick up on Chapman's weirdness but flees him in time to stay safe.Manhattan is a glowing backdrop in this tale of misdirected rage, and the musical score works well here to heighten the drama. Yet, surprisingly, there is no Beatles music in this film."Chapter 27" hints at the devastating effects of social isolation and the horror that can result when people don't take a ticking time bomb seriously.One glaring and frustrating omission is the lack of almost anything about Chapman's background. Given this film's interest in psychology, this paucity accounts for my ranking this film only a "5".