Chapter 27 (2007)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

J.P. Schaefer

Writers:

J.P. Schaefer (written by)
Jack Jones (book)

Release Date:

15 December 2007 (Japan)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

No one can survive becoming a legend.

Plot:

A film about Mark David Chapman in the days leading up to the infamous murder of Beatle John Lennon. |

Plot Keywords:

John Lennon | Murder | Cigarette Smoking | Memorial | Prostitute

Cast

Jared Leto	...	Mark David Chapman
Lindsay Lohan	...	Jude
Judah Friedlander	...	Paul
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ursula Abbott	...	Jeri
George Bryant II	...	Limo driver
Kevin Cannon	...	Precision Driver / Street Hood
Mark Lindsay Chapman	...	John Lennon
Melissa Demyan	...	Lennon Groupie
Jeane Fournier	...	European Woman
Molly Griffith	...	Covergirl / Centerfold
Matthew Humphreys	...	Frederic Seaman
Redman Maxfield	...	Maitre D'
Lauren Milberger	...	Gilda Radner
Matthew Nardozzi	...	Little Kid
Brian O'Neill	...	Patrick
Adam Scarimbolo	...	Clerk Riley
Michael Sirow	...	Joseph Many
Jeff Skowron	...	Waiter
Mariko Takai	...	Yoko Ono
Victor Verhaeghe	...	Spiro
Erik Wolfe	...	Lennon Band Member

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some sexual content.

Runtime:

84 min | USA:100 min (Sundance Film Festival)

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | Dolby SR

Certification:

Finland:K-7 | USA:R | Portugal:M/16 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Central Park West, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Peace Arch Entertainment Group

Trivia:

We are told that John Lennon was living in the Manhattan building called The Dakota, where Rosemary's Baby (1968) was filmed in 1968 - directed by Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969. The murderers were Charles Manson and his followers, who titled their death spree "Helter Skelter" after the 1968 song by The Beatles.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Mark David Chapman: I believe in Holden Caulfield. And in the book, and what he was saying, what he was saying to a lost generation of phony people.

Movie Connections:

References Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Soundtrack:

Deck the Halls

Reach Exceeds Grasp

I wanted to watch this movie because, in a weird coincidence, I happened to walk by the Dakota the night John Lennon was shot. At the time I was a senior in high school visiting New York for a few days, feeling a lot like my imagination of Holden Caufield. "John Lennon got shot," the police said. I went to Central Park for the public memorial. Some people were sad, but many others were excited, as if they were taking part in a giant happening. The atmosphere was hardly funereal, something you can see in the stock footage of the scene. I was disgusted and left. "Phonies," I thought.

The movie gets a lot of things right. The preppy clothes, the look of New York, the bad food, the awkward dialog—all this brought back memories of feeling young and alienated. It also succeeds in its allusions to "The Catcher in the Rye" and even "Lolita," where Chapman could just as easily have been Humbert Humbert at the end. The acting is quite good, and the direction, though flawed, succeeds more often than not.

Most interesting to me was the concept. Many reviewers feel disappointed that we don't understand the mind of the killer by the end. But that's the point. There's nothing to understand. The relation between fans and artists is much like the relation between youth and age, or poor and rich, or even mobs and leaders. In the first instance, there is sensitivity that this powerless and derivative, and in the second, there is sensitivity that is assured and original. The former condition, as Salinger, Nabokov, and my own memory of adolescence contend, is basically Hell. The main character never escapes this condition: consider his book inscription. From this perspective the movie is less an exploration of his motivation, which is causal and developmental, than a description of his emotional state, which is static and permanent. This is suggested by the structure of the narrative, which follows the circularity of Salinger's novel.

Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether the movie pulls off the larger metaphor, namely, that America itself has never escaped the nightmare of adolescence. If you want to see the disintegration of a lonely loser, "The Assassignation of Richard Nixon" is a better movie. But "Chapter 27" is smarter than it appears.