Reviewers say this could have been "so much better" but they don't say how. Probably with an entrance of the Doors at the end playing "Soul Kitchen". It's like the movie The Seventh Seal. It's a great movie because of the subject and the way it is presented. I read as much as I could about Chapman including Let Me Drag You Down but this movie ,in a way, is more informative about why he was killed. It won't give you all the answers but it will show you what goes on inside the mind of a killer who wants to be a celebrity. I enjoyed the part where the photographer and the doorman Jose have a conversation with Chapman just before he stays for the final shooting. Jared Leto does a tremendous job of acting. When Mark Chapman reads the Playboy interview with Lennon you can feel that this is the point where he decides to go all the way. I read that interview at the time it came out and thought what an asshole, but so what? I knew the Beatles couldn't be what they were because they would have stayed together if that was all it took. I liked Lennon and thought he was the cool one when he was with the Beatles but that kind of success when your young is not easy to shake off when your older. I wish he was still around though because he was so outspoken it would have been interesting to see what he would have been saying today. Of course he didn't want be a radical anymore so he wouldn't have turned into the Dude.

This was not very good despite Jared Leto's amazing performance. He's probably the sole reason you might want to check this out. He totally committed to this role, gaining a gross amount of weight, so that he looked exactly like Mark David Chapman and acting the part so well, you'll forget its him.This is a docudrama of sorts and follows Chapman in the days leading up to infamous murder of former Beatle John Lennon. I'm not sure that I really gained any insight into his reasons for killing, just a quest for infamy and ultimately a mental collapse.The film sort of wanders and is strange but not in the way I think the director meant to achieve. Lindsay Lohan plays a devoted Beatles fan who befriends the killer and does a decent job.Curiously the actor listed in the credits who plays John Lennon is named Mark Chapman, which is the name of the guy that really killed him (only their middle name is different) wee-woo, wee-woo. Is that real or just supposed to mess with our minds? 04.11

***SPOILERS*** We get the whole story of the murder of the Beatles John Lennon played by Mark Lindsey Chapman, no relations Mark David Chapman, straight for the horses mouth the person convict of murdering him Mark David Chapman, Jared Leto,in his cell at the Attaca Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Chapman a fanatical Beatle fan was so obsessed with his hero John that he traveled all the way from his home in Hawaii to New York City, some 6,000 miles, just to meet him. Camped out in front of the Dakota Hotel on the upper West Side of Manhattan Chapman got to meet a number of like wise fanatical Beatles fans like himself including free lance photographer Paul Goresh, Judah Friedlander. It was Paul, the photographer not the member of the Beatles singing group, who was to take the famous photo of John signing Chapman's Beatles album, with a smiling Chapman in it, just hours before Chapman ended up blasting him.Why! Why! did Chapman do it! Even now Chapman can't quite explain his actions on that fateful night in Decembner 1980. It just seemed that he was so obsessed with John Lennon and when he finally got to meet him something clicked in his sick and disturbed mind that turned him into a homicidal lunatic. John for his part was very nice to Chapman asking him if he wanted him to write anything personal on the album cover that he signed for him which an almost speechless Chapman declined to have him do. That in itself showed how crazy as well as unstable Chapman was and, now 30 years after the crime, still is.Jared Leto's portrayal of Mark David Chapman was right on target. He even gained some 67 pounds, going from his normal 160 to over 220 pounds,to look like him. Chapman was also obsessed with the underground 1960's J.D Salinger novel "Catcher in the Rye" that together with the Holy Bible Chapman was alway carried and was seen thumbing through throughout the movie. In fact it was "Catcher in the Rye" that Chapman was reading when the police nabbed him in front of the Dakota Hotel after he gunned down his hero John Lennon! We'll never really known, I don't think that even the very obviously psychotic Chapman knows, what motivated Chapman to commit the horrendous crime that he did. The guy wasn't that mentally stable to begin with in the first place. And when he finally met the person whom he was obsessed in meeting all these years something snapped in the poor guy's head that turned him into the monster that he became!P.S Check out the now very troubled Lindsey Lohan as Jude one of the John Lennon and Beatles fans outside the Dakota Hotel. Lohan is now in the process, besides getting bailed out of prison, of making a film about the late Hollywood glamor queen Elizabeth Taylor. In a number of the head on shots of Lohan in the movie she, at age 19 and 20, looked far more glamorous as well as cute and drop dead gorgeous then Elizabeth Taylor ever did at the very height of her motion picture career!

this film is very hard to review. i watched it because i think Jared Leto is a very good actor and i was fascinated by the story of the murder of John Lennon as i have heard of the name Mark David Chapman so many times in my life.. overall this film has very bad reviews but i think people don't like it because the film itself has sympathy for Mark David Chapman. i think that this film was a disturbing and unnerving account of the lead up to John Lennon's death and i thought it was quite good. Jared Leto's performance for me is outstanding in this film and was one of the reasons why i kept my eye on the screen, without Leto this film wouldn't have fascinated me as much. as a piece in itself its pretty good the dialogue is OK and the directing is alright but nothing special.i would possibly see this film again but only because of Leto's performance. if you like Leto see this film. it is quite fascinating but the film is very dark and very disturbing more so than i expected. the film really makes you visualise how this man killed John Lennon and how he was just a complete psychopath. but this film doesn't answer the question why because there is no answer to why John Lennon was murdered. i would rate this film 6.5-7 out of 10. its good but nothing special.