The Killing of John Lennon (2006)

Posted by fetchblog

July 10, 2008

This handsomely crafted docu-drama chronicles the three months in Mark David Chapman’s life before he shot John Lennon dead outside the Dakota Building in New York. Jonas Ball is disturbingly compelling as the loner with a JD Salinger obsession who gunned the ex-Beatle down “after being told to do so by God”. The dialogue is taken from Chapman’s journals and real locations used, lending this a realistic edge. John Lennon managed to raise the hackles of many when - as a multi-millionaire with an extensive property portfolio - he asked “imagine no possessions?” He certainly upset Mark Chapman. In fact, he annoyed him so much the Honolulu security guard blasted him with five hollow-pointed bullets from a Smith & Wesson outside his New York home. That fatal moment - just before 11pm on December 8 1980 - has since become one of those “can-you-remember-what-you-were-doing-when” style posers. Director Andrew Piddington has taken the pivotal event and traced the actions of Chapman back three months before the attack. Using the celebrated killer’s own journals, we get to meet a deeply disturbed 25-year-old, damaged by his emotionally distant dad (Chapman recalls him pushing his head into spaghetti) and toyboy-favouring floozie of a mom. “Normal kids don’t get to shoot an ex-Beatle,” Chapman reasonably concluded when asked to ponder his claim to infamy. Drawn to the orderliness of a public library, he chanced upon a JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and identified with the book’s hero Holden Caulfield. Next up he spotted photos of Lennon posing atop the roof of The Dakota and flew into one of his frequent rages after identifying the hypocrisy in the lyrics to Imagine. This fury stayed with him and within weeks, he’s booked a flight to New York and joined Lennon’s fans on the pavement outside the Dakota. On the fateful night, Chapman got the singer to sign a copy of Double Fantasy and then, on his return, blasted him at point-blank range. Three years in the making, this enthralling drama has at its core a tremendous performance from Jonas Ball as Chapman. He captures the killer’s oddness (the night before the killing he hires a hooker, specifying she must be foreign and not talk too much), his sudden flashes of rage and occasional gentle courtesy. Unlike shabby exploitation docu-dramas such as Bundy, this is an honest meditation on the warped assassin and his motives and assumes the tension of a thriller as the appointed time approaches. So much for giving peace a chance. I want to give a special thanks to TIm Evans of Sky Movies.