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Chapter 27
Peace Arch Entertainment
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MPAA RATING: R for language and some sexual content
Starring
Jared Leto,
Lindsay Lohan,
and
Judah Friedlander
On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering the beloved purveyor of peace, 40-year-old musician and activist John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, mentally unstable 25-year-old, a socially awkward Beatles fan who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of history. Jared Leto, 60 pounds heavier for the role, bears an uncanny physical resemblance to the real Chapman, who remains incarcerated in Attica Correctional Facility on a guilty plea. Aside from a Larry King interview in 1992, he has never spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling over three fateful days in New York City to crime journalist Jack Jones. Those interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his unthinkable act of violence. From this text, the film Chapter 27 is based. (Peace Arch Entertainment)
| GENRE(S): |
Crime
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Drama
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| WRITTEN BY: |
J.P. Schaefer
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| DIRECTED BY: |
J.P. Schaefer
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| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: September 30, 2008
Theatrical: March 28, 2008
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| RUNNING TIME: |
84 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / Canada |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion.
75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might’ve been like.
70
The Hollywood Reporter
Duane Byrge
High praise to the cast and crew. Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason.
63
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
It's a transformative role, but how widely seen it is depends on how strong a stomach one has for wall-to-wall paranoid ravings.
50
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
If Schaefer's intent was to provide some sort of insight into Chapman's character, some hint of explanation for this senseless tragedy, he fails, probably because there's none to be found beyond one lonely guy's addled brain chemistry.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Joel Selvin
An uncomfortable ride.
50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The film's 85 minutes drag by painfully slowly, because there's no respite from Chapman's tedious, self-pitying reveries.
40
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
There's virtually no context provided here, about Lennon or the Beatles or New York or Chapman himself. To put it another way, the film's entire context IS Chapman.
40
Film Threat
Jeremy Mathews
From what I can tell, the film is generally accurate regarding the events of Dec. 8. But I got as much out of it as I did by looking up Chapman on Wikipedia.
40
The New York Times
Matt Zoller Seitz
Except for Judah Friedlander’s earthy, funny work as a paparazzo, most of the performances are vague and dull, including Lindsay Lohan’s supporting turn as a fictional Beatles fan who befriends Mr. Chapman.
40
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
The presence of Lohan – a celebrity whose every move is tracked by the media like an endangered species of hawk – only serves to highlight the point that the truly fascinating story behind the murder of Lennon wasn't Chapman's madness (and certainly not his weight) but the depths of our celebrity mania and the influence we’re willing to concede to personalities larger than our own.
38
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Judah Friedlander and Lindsay Lohan are striking, respectively, as a Lennon paparazzo and a fan creeped out by Chapman.
38
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Don't hammer this film for trying to get inside the head of Mark David Chapman before he shot John Lennon outside the rock legend's New York apartment on December 8th, 1980. Hammer it instead for failing to do so with any depth or insight.
30
Variety
Dennis Harvey
Jared Leto gained some 70 pounds. Seemingly following his lead, the pic itself is heavy, lethargic, and exasperating.
30
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
This drama, about the three days leading up to the murder, never overcomes its inherent ghoulishness, largely because Chapman, like so many mentally ill people, is a huge bore.
25
New York Post
Kyle Smith
This boring, torpid movie notices its own flaws and unwisely underlines them.
20
Village Voice
Ed Gonzalez
A retarded sense of meta is achieved whenever Leto's Chapman goes on about the phony theatrics of film actors, but it's Lindsay Lohan, as über–Lennon fan Jude, who breaks your heart, looking convincingly horrified that she has three undeserved Razzies while Leto has none.
0
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Visually ugly, morally non-existent and a complete black hole in the departments of insight and wit, Chapter 27 is quite possibly the most godawful, irredeemable film to yet emerge in the 21st century.
0
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Perhaps the harshest criticism that can be directed at Chapter 27 is that it's awful even for a late-period Lindsay Lohan movie. It might even be bad enough to inspire "Catcher" author J.D. Salinger to break his decades of public silence to speak out against this high-camp fiasco.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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