Heya Guys,

So last night I watched one of the most buzzed about films here at Sundance, Chapter 27, it wasn’t buzzed because anyone had seen it, all the jibber-jabber was focused on Jared Leto/Lindsay Lohan starfucking and/or the move by a group of beatles fans to picket and boycott the film because it brings a sympathetic eye to Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon.

Chapter 27 – Written and Directed by JP Schaffer

I originally took a stab at writing a review of this last night, but I trashed that after two tries, because very little happens for most of this movie in those reviews I merely tried giving a full-on scene-by-scene description of the entire movie. You can’t spoil a movie where nothing happens for 2 hours culminating with a forty-second assassination scene. But that was a big mistake, because every scene of the film of the film is so mundane that reading a list of them is about as interesting as reading a stranger’s grocery list. If anyone is still interested in knowing more about the movie after reading this review, I can email you one of those other too detailed reviews by request.

Except for about a minute of documentary footage the entire film follows around Mark Chapman (Jared Leto) through his days in New York prior to assassinating Lennon. Unfortunately these days are mostly spent asking people in front of the Dakota building if Lennon is coming back anytime soon or standing at the corner of the building holding a record of Lennon’s that he tells people he is trying to get autographed. To try to make things more interesting the entire film is full of Mark’s internal monologue via spastic voice-over, unfortunately he never says anything quite interesting.

I don’t know why anyone would make this film, it doesn’t get in the mind of Chapman at all or tell anything interesting whatsoever. For the few minutes of the film that Chapman actually interacts with people rather than staring around and contemplating his repetitive voice-over thought nothing interesting happens. Lindsay Lohan plays a Beatles fan that occasionally spends time at the Dakota hoping to get a glimpse of Lennon. Unfortunately her character only has about five to ten minutes of screen-time and like most of the film very little happens in her presence except for a very awkward scene where she introduces Mark to toddler Sean Lennon. If you go in expecting Lohan to be a co-star in the film you are going to be quite disappointed, nonetheless she does a wonderful job in the little bit that she appears in the film.

The other character (other than Dakota doormen, taxi drivers, and a silent hooker) that MDC encounters is a paparazzi’sh photographer played by Judah Friedlander. Judah has about five more minutes than Lohan does in the movie, but it’s still stretching to even call it a supporting role. Judah’s major moment is toward the end of the movie he takes a photo of Mark getting an autograph from Lennon and agrees to sell the photo to Mark the next day for fifty dollars. Judah is also pretty good the little he is in the movie.

Jared Leto gives what could be an academy award winning performance in this boring shitty movie. He’s gained a lot of weight for his role in the film, unfortunately the director wants to ingrain this fact into your mind by obsessively photographing his naked belly for five or more minutes in his crappy motel room. Leto also has mastered the voice of MDC, but too bad he spends most of the movie repeating the same spastic voice-over thoughts.

Tom Richmond was working on overdrive when he shot this movie, every scene is wonderfully photographed very dark and murkily. It very much suits the insanity of Chapman, but a well-photographed image can only go so far. The best thing about the movie actually is Anthony Marinelli. Just like Leto, Marinelli has delivered an award-winning score for what is a very crappy movie. At times the score nearly convinces you that you are watching tense and emotional sequences as you watch Chapman just standing around or bundling up in the cold.

After watching the movie I still have no idea why Mark Chapman killed John Lennon, the only thing I know is that he’s crazy and in the last bit of text apparently he’s a born-again Christian now. See this movie only if you are interested in watching shots of Jared Leto standing in the cold or crossing streets while thinking “maybe I shouldn’t kill him
nah I gotta kill him” for a hundred or so minutes.

It’s kind of a depressing thought that this will probably get picked up this weekend for a ton of money. Between the photography, the cast, and the score one could cut a very good trailer for the movie and fool people into watching it. I feel for all the people at boycottchapter27.org now, I thought they were kind of wacky at first, but to be honest this is a very shitty movie that was made in the worst of taste, so it probably should be boycotted as it’s basically just exploiting the death of john lennon and seems to glorify Mark Chapman’s insanity.

Rav

Lindsay - I'm here for you!