Chapter 27

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What’s the Story?

In CHAPTER 27, Mark David Chapman is played by Jared Leto (beneath 60 extra pounds of serious-actor weight). He still hates celebrities and "phonies," and he still kills John Lennon. Much like The Killing of John Lennon, J.P. Schaefer's movie takes its cues from Chapman's own thoughts -- in this case, his interviews with crime journalist Jack Jones (published in 1992), which focus on his three days in New York City in 1980. Chapman stands outside the Dakota, meets a fellow "fan" -- the astoundingly named Jude (Lindsay Lohan) -- and reads The Catcher in the Rye. Oh, and he kills Lennon.

Is It Any Good?

Confused and profoundly vulnerable, here Chapman is also calculating and judgmental, determined to forge order out of his own emotional chaos. His resolve inspired by a fictional character (Catcher's Holden Caulfield), Chapman's insanity is plain but banal. The film doesn't pretend to interpret him, though it occasionally suggests that he represents a broader angst and turmoil, a desire to stop the ongoing onslaught of all-consuming consumer culture. As Chapman appears both idealistic and out of touch, he seems a neat emblem of hope and hopelessness. "I believe in Holden Caulfield," he announces. "And the book. And what it was saying, what it was saying to a lost generation of phony people."

Still, the film seems stuck in first gear, grinding through obvious points. Yes, Chapman is troubled by his inability to match masculine ideals (he hires a prostitute for his last night, telling her, "I'm not a weirdo, I wanted to be in the company of a woman tonight"), communicate with his wife (he calls her in Hawaii to ensure she's read Catcher), or make friends (Jude eventually scurries away, worried by Chapman's decidedly strange behavior). Though he makes sure to leave behind an assortment of items by which the police might "know what he's become," the film's unsurprising punchline is that Chapman himself cannot know. Imagining he should be "remembered," he succumbs to the force of celebrity after all.