Compliment Leto for getting fat and portraying an animal.

This reviewer is possibly in love with Leto. Does he have any idea who Leto is portraying??

Just consider what John Lennon could have done if he were still alive??

Chapter 27 isn’t the type of widely focused study of a real life event and man that we usually get. It is, instead, a fascinating study of the inner workings of the mind of an obsessive fan and psychopath. The film tells the story of Mark David Chapman, and the three days leading up to the infamous killing of Beatle John Lennon.

Apart from Jared Leto’s utterly fascinating performance there isn’t much to Chapter 27. The whole film rests on Leto and that requires a considerably great performance, and I am happy to say Leto delivers. In a "Christian Bale in The Machinist"-type exercise, Leto has changed his weight considerably for the role, gaining over 60 pounds to not only play Chapman but to become him.

You’re either going to love and appreciate having to watch this man and his actions or you’re going to feel tortured by it. For Beatles fans this is going to be one tough film to watch, and perhaps one that will instill hatred for how plainly it displays the event that happens. But as someone who’s not a Beatles fan, I found the sense of realism and truth to it all the more interesting. However, as I said, this film isn’t really about John Lennon, or his untimely death, but the mind of his killer — how he ended up coming all the way from Hawaii to New York and the motives behind his actions. By the film’s end Leto's performance justified my having watched this messed-up guy for 80 minutes, if for no other reason than to get a sense of what it must have been like to be there on the day the killing took place.

I guess in my recommendation I am not really recommending the film itself, but rather Leto’s quite stunning performance. I find him a much underrated actor anyway and hopefully this will get his acting talent noticed by more people. The film certainly hasn’t been getting positive reviews from the majority, something which I can’t quite fathom. Maybe it was just my taking to the film and Leto’s performance that I can’t see past and that maybe most people just don’t see anything positive. I will chalk this up as one of the most underrated films of 2008.

It’s very interesting how first time writer/director J.P. Schaeffer goes about telling this man’s story; he chooses some very unorthodox techniques as far as when and how he shows the events. We know from the first few minutes of the film that Chapman has already killed Lennon and is in a mental hospital telling the story to “someone” and the identity of that someone is a nice little twist to the film. On day one of the three days we will see Chapman in a cab talking to the driver about where he came from and where he’s going and suddenly we will be flashed a few frames of Lennon’s body being taken away in an ambulance. The film acknowledges that we all know what happened on December 8, 1980 in New York City and thus it goes about telling the story accordingly.

Not unlike last year’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the film portrays Chapman as half of what he was – an obsessive fan. The other half, which is unlike Jesse James, is he’s a killer and a psychopath. Both films have weaker, more obsessive characters than each of their celebrities and there’s a strange “must do it” mentality to them both. Even though they are their victims' “biggest fans” they ultimately are the undoing of them.

I am not quite sure that Chapter 27 has enough in it to sustain its 80 minute runtime. Although the film had me for a good hour of it I did feel, even at such a short length, that it dragged. However Leto is fascinating enough in the role and his performance is what ultimately makes the film thoroughly worthwhile.

Remember John, not his killer!!
Boycott Chapter 27!!!
Stop Peace Arch Entertainment