Michael O'Keefe On the night of December 8, 1980, John Lennon, co-founder of The Beatles, was shot to death in front of his New York City apartment. Mark David Chapman(Jonas Ball), more-or-less a loner searching for an identity to grab for his own, decides to induce grandiose attention upon himself. Ending his security guard shift in Hawaii, he flies to New York City with the full intent to killing John Lennon. It was a love-hate relationship...Chapman loved the music, but also conceived Lennon to be a phony because of all his material things. Camping outside John's apartment at The Dakota, Chapman does receive an autograph. He would linger longer descending into a madness that would allow him to put five bullets in Lennon. How true this depiction is is very debatable, but riveting just the same. Others in the cast: Mie Omori, Krisha Fairchild, Robert C. Kirk, Gunter Stern and Joe Rosario.

crossbow0106 This story traces the last three months of John Lennon's assassin Mark David Chapman, as he slips into the unreality of deciding he must kill John. I know there have been films like this before, about serial killers and assassins, but why one about Lennon? The film is authentic, using Chapman's own words, but the question is, why would you wish to go through the agony of this? If you were alive in 1980, and the Beatles in any way touched your life, you remember where you were when John was gunned down. I don't think the film's goal is to explain Chapman, just to give a sober account of him. In and of itself, I accept that. The acting also is pretty good in this film. But, its like revisiting a really horrible moment in your life on celluloid. If you loved John, you should have mixed emotions, at best, watching this. A pet peeve, almost inexcusable: When Chapman comes to New York and he is in the cab along Times Square, you don't see the Times Square of 1980, you see it as it is now. The Virgin Megastore did not exist in 1980! Times Square was a dangerous place in those days, full of prostitutes and x rated movie theaters. There is no reason why that scene happened. So, if you loved John, I'd skip it. The last thing a Beatle fan needs to hear about is Mark David Chapman.

dbborroughs Re-enactment of the months leading up to the shooting of John Lennon in the life of Mark David Chapman using his own words and the actual locations.Stunningly made and extremely well acted film is the cinematic equivalent to being dropping into the mind of a mad man. This is a often a scary portrait of a man on the edge. Through the use of words and images one can get a sense of what it may have been like inside the brain who killed John Lennon. Its a wonderful achievement that makes me want to see what director Andrew Piddington has done before and will do after (It appears he's done mostly TV documentaries). The early part of the film is very unnerving since you begin to see and understand what Chapman was thinking and going through. It is not an easy thing to identify with a killer and there are moments when Piddington makes you do that. (I know several people who don't want to see this film at all because they want to have nothing to do with the subject) As well made and well acted as the film is the film falls down in one key area, its simply too long. Running almost two hours the film simply begins to run out of steam as we watch the monotony of Chapman's life become monotony on screen. Some scenes seem to go on too long and others seem be a repeat of things we've seen before. What worse is that its an intriguing thing to think and feel like a madman its another to feel trapped in his mind and after a while the sensation becomes one similar to drowning and one wants to simply tune out and shut down. I hate to say it but I think probably a half hour could be removed to speed things up.Well made enough to be worth a look on cable (I saw this on the pay service IFC on Demand) or as a rental where you may be ale to get through the slow bits by walking away for a while.6.5 out of 10.

pkwsbw I watched this film on pay per view mainly because I remember that day so well. It's hard for me to say exactly why, but I don't think the film quite works. Somehow the character development didn't click for me. The film was a bit slow moving, and I didn't like the occasional surrealistic asides showing him freaking out, descending into madness.Technically, there were many flaws. They didn't try very hard to get the period right, other than obvious things like his haircut, car, and the 1980 presidential campaign. Also, I recall reading that part of Chapman's motive was that he was a rigid Christian, and he still smarted from Lennon's offending of the faith way back in the 60s. I think he had been some sort of youth counselor as well.Overall, there was too much of an amateurishness to the production for me to recommend.