A riveting, disturbing glimpse into the mind of 25-year-old Mark David Chapman, better known as the man who shot and killed former Beatles singer John Lennon, during the days that led up to the deadly shooting outside The Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The films traces Chapman, fueled by intense admiration for Taxi Driver and Catcher in the Rye antiheroes Travis Bickle and Holden Caulfield, as he travels from his home in Hawaii to the mean streets of Manhattan. Once there, his delusions of grandeur seem to multiply rapidly. Consumed by loneliness and alienation, set off by even the most innocent questions from strangers, Chapman is clearly a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. Newcomer Jonas Ball is a revelation as Chapman, delivering a chilling, unforgettable performance that includes dialogue lifted verbatim from the killer's own journal and public statements. The film itself was independently financed and shot over the course of three years (in some cases at actual locations frequented by Chapman), and it unflinchingly examines the celebrity-worship prevalent in society then and now. No run-of-the-mill thriller, The Killing of John Lennon is instead preoccupied with the inner workings of the young man's twisted mind, beginning in his troubled youth and into his later, fatal descent into madness and zealotry.