First Hit: I hoped for something possibly more insightful, but found the film disappointing. However, that could be because the ending is so depressing.
Attempting to better understand the mind of someone who actually killed someone I admired very much was the draw for me to see this film.
I knew nothing of Mark David Chapman before seeing the film and all I really learned by watching the film is that he both admired and hated John Lennon.
Jared Leto as Chapman was eerie and his mood shifts were ominous. As the film drew on I could feel the tenseness of how he kept stepping closer to the ending I didn’t want to happen.
In this vain, Leto is excellent and definitely takes you to this dark space. However, the whole film starts out dark and just gets darker. Lindsay Lohan (plays Jude) is convincing as a Lennon admirer and the way she befriends Chapman. She is enough of a groupie that she knows some of the Lennon family patterns and intercepts Sean Lennon and his nanny heading home from a walk in the park and knows them on a first name basis.
Overall: This is a dark film and is well directed in this way. It just is such an unhappy ending.