The Killing of John Lennon
DIR/WRI: Andrew Piddington • PROD: Rakha Singh. • DOP: Roger Eaton • ED: Tony Palmer • DES: Tora Peterson • CAST: Jonas Ball, Krisha Fairchild, Robert C. Kirk, Mie Omori, Gunter Stern, Gail Kay Bell, Richard Sherman

'I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody'

The Killing of John Lennon was released to coincide with the anniversary of the real killing of Lennon on 8th December 1980. Detailing Mark David Chapman’s early obsessions through to the climax of his calculated rage, this is a taut, direct and chilling dramatisation of Chapman’s plot to murder the famous Beatle.

The film opens in Hawaii, with our protagonist benighted by his humdrum existence and dead-end job. In need of enlightenment, he retreats into the confines of the library. Here he discovers the zenith of teenage angst and disaffection The Catcher in the Rye. This book indulges Chapman’s outsider mentality; soon he so identifies with J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, that he assumes the nihilistic mantra of the novel’s central character. In the pages of another book about a man who sings, “Imagine no possessions”, yet owns yachts and ranches Chapman finds his own ‘phoney’. His outrage fuels his isolation and gives his life purpose. What follows is an exacting account of Chapman’s plot to kill Lennon.

To carry out his new mission, Chapman first signs off at work as John Lennon, before buying a gun and jetting to the Big Apple, leaving his life behind. Soon afterwards, at the Dakota building where Lennon was known to live, Chapman begins his murderous vigil, punctuated only by his escalating paranoia and fleeting conversations with other star seekers. Some weeks later, sensing the day was nigh, Chapman moves to a new hotel, hires an escort and lays out his belongings to be found by police. The next day, Chapman meets Lennon for the first time, outside the Dakota, and gets an autograph. This dark and unsettling scene is the movies finest. Chapman not only seeks but also cherishes the signature, yet just hours later he shoots Lennon in the back and waits for the police, clinging to his copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

Made over three years on a tiny budget, The Killing of John Lennon proves a challenging and rewarding movie with a terrific central performance from previously unknown Jonas Ball. The film is meticulous, utilising testimony from Chapman to flush out Ball’s first person narration. It is filmed on location, with scenes shot, pardon the unseemly pun, in the gun shop where Chapman obtained the mechanism to his mega-stardom. It’s well edited (bar the long ending) well shot and superbly acted, but despite its strengths, it is the subject that will prove the talking point.

As I write, eight innocent people were slain in a mall by another disaffected American youth seeking fame in death. Yet Chapman would not approve. 'What glory is there in killin’ an unknown?' as he remarks in this film. Chapman differs from the barrage of High School shootings, in that he was 25, happily married and he meticulously targeted a single individual for the advancement of his own personal goals, one of which he later realised was increasing sales of The Catcher in the Rye. Yet the making of this film and Chapter 27, also about Chapman and scheduled for release next year, would draw approval from at least one man – Chapman. Making a movie like this draws attention to men like Chapman and immortalises them in the very way they had hoped. This movie does not condone or glamorise Chapman or his awful deed but it does serve his goals. By the end we understand or at least know why and how Chapman kills John Lennon, and in that same moment Chapman is no longer nobody; he becomes somebody. Do we want to give these people the fame that justifies their murderous exploits? If you can address the moral questions that this film raises, you will witness a stirring and provoking film.

Darragh Fingleton
(Read biog here)

Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
The Killing of John Lennon is released on 7th December 2007
The Killing of John Lennon – Official website