Chapter 27 (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Crime	Main Menu Animation Trailer Featurette-Making Of
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	80:56
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	J.P. Schaefer
Studio Distributor	Peace Arch Ent Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Ursula Abbott George Bryant II Kevin Cannon Mark Lindsay Chapman Melissa Demyan Jeane Fournier Judah Friedlander Molly Griffith
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Anthony Marinelli

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (320Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, John Lennon smokes French ciggies, yay!
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

Chapter 27 is the story of Mark David Chapman, who is played by a seriously bulked up Jared Leto (of Fight Club and Requiem For a Dream fame), in the three days leading up to the point he assassinated John Lennon. Chapman was mentally unstable at the time and battled confused feelings that swung wildly from loving Lennon to despising him and thinking of him as a phoney. His feelings are purported to have been driven by an obsession with the novel Catcher in the Rye, with Chapman seeing himself as acting out the next chapter in the life of the book's protagonist Holden Caulfied (hence the film's title, as the book ends with chapter 26).

Whilst this sounds an intriguing premise, there really isn't much story to work with (certainly in this small time period). The filmmakers struggle to wring a screen story out of the facts, both failing to find a story in the material and inadequately covering the threads they pull (anyone unfamiliar with Lennon's assassination and Catcher in the Rye will struggle to figure out what's going on most of the time). This leads to about half the dialogue in the movie being voice-over (and an incredibly silly-sounding high-pitch monotone voice-over at that), speaking out the thoughts in Chapman's head as Leto struts around the screen emoting heavily (a little too heavily). Lindsay Lohan appears as Jude, a fellow Beatles fan that Chapman attempts to connect with, though her appearances are brief and add up to nothing more than padding (and boy does she look like she look like she just wants to read her lines and nick off back to the pub). Similarly, 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander appears briefly as a paparazzo who Chapman befriends.

The film attempts to work as a character study of the disturbed Chapman but falls flat thanks to a painfully two dimensional characterisation (literally - it's almost as if he could be yelling "I'm Evil" one moment, "I'm Good" the next and never any point in between). More often than not, rather than Chapman appearing confused, the film itself seems confused. Leto's overacting doesn't help matters much either, though it pales in significance next to the aimless and sloppy direction of the film. 80 minutes (including credits) has never felt as long as it does for the duration of Chapter 27.

Video

The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, which appears to be an open matte of the theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

The video quality throughout is very inconsistent, but watchable. For the most part the image is reasonably sharp and features only a mild level of noticeable film grain. A number of scenes, including virtually every shot with Lindsay Lohan in frame, are both poorly lit and in distractingly soft focus (eg 9:54, 44:54, 51:55). Others, particularly night scenes, are simply inadequately lit (eg 65:47). The shadow detail is surprisingly reasonable throughout though.

The colour in the film is also a little inconsistent. On the whole it seems pale and washed out, so much so that this is probably a deliberate effect - though not an effective deliberate effect.

A moderate number of small film artefacts are visible in the transfer, mostly black flecks of dust. There is mild mosquito noise visible around text and finely defined objects throughout the film, but the video is otherwise free of digital compression artefacts.

English subtitles for the hearing impaired are present for the feature. Based on the portion I sampled they appear to be accurate and well timed.

This is a single layer disc, so no layer change is present.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps) and Dolby Digital 2.0 (320 Kbps) audio tracks are present for the film.

The dialogue is at a good level in the fairly spartan mix and is easy to understand. The audio appears to be well synchronised to the video

The film features a rather innocuous score from Anthony Marinelli, which sits well in the mix. No Beatles or Lennon music appears in the film.

There is limited surround use in the mix. Later parts of the film put the surrounds to reasonably good use, though for the bulk of the film they are forgotten. There is no noticeable subwoofer usage at any point.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

The disc opens with an obnoxious anti-piracy short that can not be skipped, followed by trailers for Grace is Gone, Be Kind Rewind, and Reservation Road that can be skipped.

Making Of Featurette (11:02)

A rather bland press-kit style "Making Of" featurette that seems aimed more at selling the importance of the movie than actually discussing its making. Evidently the cast and crew like John Lennon. Who would have guessed?

Theatrical Trailer (1:57)

A reasonably well-cut theatrical trailer. Though it seems a rather silly token given that Chapter 27 never received theatrical release in Australia.

At the time of writing, Chapter 27 has not been released in Region 1.

A slow moving jumble of a film. Rather than a character study of a confused murderer, this is a confused character study of a cardboard cutout.

The video is rather uneven, though watchable. The audio is sparse. The extras are slight and not worth the effort.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall