Jarrett Schaefer
Chapter 27

MTV called it one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. Beatles fans hate it as if it were a kind of nemesis, so much so that they wanted to boycott it in theaters. Even Yoko Ono called this film something that shouldn't have been done, as did John Lennon's own son, Sean, who criticized it as "tasteless," ironically noting the fact that Lindsay Lohan appeared in it, a point of view that is quite debatable.

The film Chapter 27, named after an imaginary chapter of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, took four years of work just for the screenplay. The protagonist is the controversial figure of Mark David Chapman, the infamous assassin responsible for the death of his idol, John Lennon. Jared Leto was chosen for the role, who had to gain thirty kilos for the occasion, while for Lennon, the actor Mark Lindsay Chapman took part. Bizarrely and eerily enough, just to trip out Chapman himself, the actor chosen to play Lennon shared his assassin's name and the second name with the actress playing Jude, the girl our protagonist would attempt to "court" in his own way. From this, it is clear that the film intends to drive the viewer crazy with this mix of information. Jokes aside, beyond the success and pseudo-cult fame, this film is nothing but a depiction of the three days Chapman showed up outside Lennon's house, along with many of the artist's fans, simply to get an autograph on the newly released album "Double Fantasy," being a musical mentor of his. Or at least that's how the film wants us to be introduced.

The film is a descent into the labyrinthine mind of Mark Chapman, a character who, despite having the chubby face of Jared Leto, is at once repulsive, moody, and anything but benevolent. The film is rotten in intent, never making Chapman "likable" in the eyes of the viewer; in fact, one finds themselves in the shoes of the secondary characters withdrawing from him, and the further you withdraw, the more you feel him behind, persistently waiting by your side for his idol Lennon to show up before his eyes. At the same time, the film cleverly uses voice-over for almost the entire duration, with Chapman himself describing what he thinks, managing to break the fourth wall and making us spectators of his sensations and misdeeds, with the deception of being unable to do anything to save Lennon, although we see him approaching the camera twice, both in the evening and upon returning at night. How many in the cinema shouted at Lennon not to get out of that car, and how many, thinking back on it now, feel chills down their spine? Chapman has an inner voice, a voice that from loving his idol, as if his autograph were the greatest gift of life, drags him mercilessly into hatred and resentment toward himself, calling him a hypocrite and a man with "connections with the devil," in a witty nod within the film to Polanski's masterpiece "Rosemary's Baby," filmed right in the building where Lennon lived, the Manhattan castle. Chapman is a character for whom it is impossible to feel empathy, both because his intentions are clear from the outset and because Leto goes to great lengths to make him slippery and annoying.

The main problem with the film is that despite a script that is somewhat curious, which could even be interesting to analyze from certain points of view, the idea is burned by the pace. A film that besides Chapman's hidden thoughts, his relationship with Lohan, and the photographer boy, leads nowhere, and boredom reigns supreme after twenty minutes. For heaven's sake, we are not faced with a failed film, but what truly stands out and is memorable is Jared Leto's performance, an actor I never considered particularly talented, but here he seriously grasps the character's psychology, managing to lend him a veil of madness that could explode at any moment, and in certain sequences, he even manages to unsettle, like in the one with the prostitute in the room. He himself stated that gaining weight to that point was a psychological blow. Besides this, the film has significant script shortcomings: Lohan's character is irrelevant to the plot, except for the sole purpose of inserting a female character to bring out Chapman's "tender" side, although she has zero psychology, while the photographer isn't even remembered because there is no real relationship with our protagonist, and as soon as one tries to be, the film pulls the brake, and what reigns is simply boredom, falling back into the comfort zone of a film with a bipolar protagonist who decides what is right and wrong. For heaven's sake, surely our protagonist wasn't easy to portray without appearing ridiculous, the problem is what surrounds him, what makes us wonder why it triggered such reactions. The songs "Imagine" and "God" are not even mentioned in the film, which led Chapman in his madness to want to kill Lennon for his "religious belief," considering he himself is an avid Bible reader, a rather important detail that should not have been overlooked. The good news is that the film lasts 84 minutes, so we are not even facing that two-and-a-half-hour brick where you must endure the life, death, and miracles of every character, allowing a sigh of relief for those who would like to approach the film.

"Chapter 27" remains a film that, all in all, I recommend, especially for those curious to learn more about the story of the death of one of the musical geniuses of the last century, or alternatively, I highly recommend the film "The Killing Of John Lennon" released the year before, much less known but in some ways as a story much richer and darker, just for comparison and to understand why I consider the latter in some aspects far superior. “I was nobody until I shot the most famous man on Earth.”