Mark Chapman was so much more than John Lennon’s killer – he made The Beatles irrelevant too...

Initially premiered at Sundance in 2007, Chapter 27 dramatises the days leading up to the murder of Lennon, from his killer’s point of view. Unsurprisingly, the film was panned upon its release – both by cinema-goers and Fab Four fanatics. Is it really that bad though?

In 1970, on his first solo album, Lennon made reference to his former band by singing “the dream is over”. But in reality, he carried on weaving – releasing more music, becoming more vocal about his politics…even his bread-baking days were well-documented. He never really left the limelight. Ditto the rest of The Beatles. They might not have been as relevant, but they were still there, untoppled from their ivory pop tower (and by 1980, utterly awful at the day job too).

Mark David Chapman changed all that though. Not just by proving that peace most definitely wasn’t a viable answer to the world’s troubles, but also by putting the kybosh on any chance of a Beatles reunion. Sure, it wasn’t at the top of the world’s musical wish-list (rightly so, in hindsight), but the fact all four mop-tops were still ‘around’ must surely have imposed a huge, dragging sense of “Will they/Won’t they?” on fans; much in the same way as The Smiths and The Stone Roses do these days. It was Chapman who broke that dream once and for all, literally stopping Lennon in his tracks, but metaphorically forcing the surviving Beatles to embrace their shadowy ‘has-been’ status that had been threatening them since April 1970. Chapter 27 is here to cast light on how and why he did it.

You can’t really help but feel a bit guilty while watching it though. Not necessarily because it could hand Chapman martyrdom – it doesn’t intend to do that – but because it just feels plain uncomfortable to delve into his mind for 90-odd minutes. You can already guess what he’s like (slobbish, mentally unstable, clingy, bad taste in jumpers) and you also know exactly what the film’s leading up to. That’s what’s grating. There’s no concealed pathos here, no black comedy, nothing (apart from the murder) to particularly dislike about Chapman’s character, which is played amiably by a podgy Jared Leto.

Chapman is tedious, slow, predictable and boring. It doesn’t make great cinema. What’s more, the number of cheesy Beatles lyrics and asides snuck into the script here reach almost shameful proportions. You can hardly get through a scene without Chapman & co ‘ironically’ muttering things like “it won’t be long…”, and “He’s…Somewhere in New York City’. The best example of this is saved for Lindsay Lohan’s character name though: Jude. The scriptwriters make sure you’re aware of the faux significance of this by inserting the obligatory “hey!” and “don’t let me down” wherever possible, as if her name has some huge importance on the overall story (it doesn’t). When the duo end up going to the zoo together, meeting ‘Ringo The Dolphin’ it’s just too absurd to take serio…ok, ok, that didn’t happen. But you feel it’s well within the realms of possibility.

Ultimately though, it’s Chapman himself who derails the film the most. His story just isn’t interesting enough to warrant this kind of blockbuster attention. He was nuts and he murdered a Beatle. Gutted. But that’s it. There’s no hidden meaning here, nothing to shock, not even anything to entice. Yeah, you feel drained and depressed after watching it. But did the producers want that? Unlikely.

A film about Lennon’s bread-baking escapades, though...now you’re talking. (Bert Gubbins)