CHAPTER 27 Strictly by the Book
BY NICK MARSHALL, PARK CITY, USA – CHAPTER 27, directed and written by J. P. Schaeffer is a commercial attempt at a psyche-dive into the head of Mark Chapman, the assassin of John Lennon. CHAPTER 27 implies a continuation of The Catcher in the Rye, (the novel having 26 chapters) a book Chapman was obsessed with to the point where he slowly believed he was Holden Caulfield and even used his language, spiced with “god damned” this and complaining about “phonies” everywhere. The title was also inspired by chapter 27 in Robert Rosen’s book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, which explores Chapman and Lennon’s obsession with numerology (multiples of 9 having a profound impact on Lennon’s life). While the mention of the numerology angle was interesting, it would have been interesting to see numerology play a role, incorporating the birth dates of Lennon (October 9), his son, Sean, (October 9) and Yoko (February 18), along with Beatles songs with nine in them and the date of Lennon’s death (December 9 in England, though he was shot in New York on December 8 at 11pm).
The film seemed to portray Chapman as being more obsessed with Holden Caulfield and The Catcher in the Rye than with Lennon. It seemed that he was a lover of the Beatles and their music AND that Lennon was an outlet for his frustration with his life AND with, possibly, the Beatles breaking up. I don’t think the film tried to convey Chapman’s reasoning behind the killing of Lennon nor do I think the audience was able to get inside his head to better understand his non-logical thinking. In my opinion, J. P. Schaeffer played it too safe and a story like this should be pushed as far as possible to put the audience into the mind of a murderer.
I’ve always respected Jared Leto as an actor. In almost every movie he’s in, he physically transforms, and CHAPTER 27 was no exception. He gained over 65 pounds to portray the overweight, unhealthy and unglamorous Chapman. In the Q&A, it was interesting to hear Leto address the weight gain and how as he gained the extra girth he started to walk differently, talk differently, and feel differently. Besides the weight, he also takes on a quiet southern drawl and Chapman’s “tick” of pushing up on his glasses. Lindsey Lohan’s character, Jude, was nothing more than fluff, a one note pun, on “Hey Jude.” While the audience may have appreciated the joke the first time, it seemed to run long.
At the end of the film, I had hoped that the real Chapman would come on and address the audience and say something truly spine-tingling, but alas there was no shock at the end (besides the obvious assassination). It was compelling to watch Jared Leto at times but a story like this relies so heavily on the director to let the audience in, and even though Schaeffer has talent, I think he restrained and held back. This film should have as powerful as a gun shot and sadly it was just a little above a whimper.
