Metacritic reviews

Piddington does a beautiful balancing act, creating a movie that works both on the level of suspense and as a detailed factual chronicle.

Anchored by a fearless, commanding lead perf by newcomer Jonas Ball as deranged assassin Mark David Chapman, The Killing of John Lennon is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind.

It's a "Taxi Driver"-inspired odyssey into violence and insanity that runs close to two hours -- a long time to be riding shotgun with a madman.

The film never gets beyond Chapman's obsession with "Catcher in the Rye" and a few bits of "Taxi Driver" dialogue to show us anything we didn't already know.

Boasts an undeniable technical proficiency and historical authenticity, but this docudrama detailing assassin Mark David Chapman's obsession, stalking and eventual murder of the beloved Beatle nonetheless has an unavoidably exploitative feel.

Shot in a quasi-documentary style at the actual locations where the events took place, including the sidewalk outside the Dakota, the movie is extremely uncomfortable to watch.

"Killing" never moves past a superficial understanding of its subject, whose transcribed ramblings may not be the best key to unlocking his fractured mind. The movie gets inside Chapman's head but never under his skin.

As the narrative lugubriously sticks to the documented events, we are served nothing more than a filmed transcript.

An occasionally revealing glimpse inside the mind of Chapman before, during and after the assassination.

Director Andrew Piddington's fastidiously researched, dubiously suspenseful character portrait is unable to salvage a lick of hindsight from the tragedy beyond "Murderous narcissists are people, too." (He's a victim of our celebrity-fixated culture? Oh, shut up.)