Yes, It’s Possible to Make a Decent Movie with “27” in the Title

Originally posted May 1, 2008.

Elliot (Joe Anderson) confronts the cryptic suicide 
notes of his bandmate in The 27 Club.

The 27 Club
Written and Directed by Erica Dunton
With Joe Anderson, David Emrich, Eve Hewson, James Forgey, Alexie Gilmore, and David Sherrill

Robert Rosen

As some of you might be aware, I know a thing or two about numerology. It’s a subject I researched extensively when I was writing Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. Lennon, born October 9, and Yoko Ono, born February 18, were numerology freaks, huge fans of Cheiro’s Book of Numbers, and deeply enamored of the number 9 and its multiples 18 and 27. Because Mark David Chapman, in his psychotic delusions, believed that by killing Lennon he’d write Chapter 27, the missing chapter of The Catcher in the Rye, in Lennon’s blood, 27 is a key number in Nowhere Man.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I invite you to read two postings on my other blog, “Chapter 27.” The first is called “John Lennon’s Bible and the Occult Significance of 27.” The other is called “27: The Unluckiest Number in Rock ’n’ Roll”—which brings us to The 27 Club.

The 27 Club, as you may have figured out from the heading, is not the only movie to recently appear that has 27 in the title. The other is Chapter 27, a film about the murder of Lennon that ripped off its title from Nowhere Man, but didn’t bother to explain what Chapter 27 means—which is only one of the reasons it’s received some of the most vicious reviews garnered by any movie in recent memory. And though I don’t think that Chapter 27 is “the most godawful, irredeemable film to yet emerge in the 21st century,” as Premiere magazine said, I do think that it’s unfortunate that The 27 Club follows so close in its wake. Both movies are ostensibly about death, fame, and rock ’n’ roll, and some people may confuse them. And though The 27 Club may be flawed, it’s still a good little film, with much to recommend it.

For one thing (and this obviously can’t be taken for granted), The 27 Club explains its title: A number of great rock musicians—Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Brian Jones being the best known—have died at age 27, and collectively, they’re known as “the 27 Club.” (Check out the cottage industry in 27 Club T-shirts and posters.)

Why would anybody want to join this exclusive fraternity? That’s the existential question that haunts Elliot (Joe Anderson), the lead singer in a hugely popular group called Finn, when Tom (James Forgey), his childhood friend and bandmate, purposely overdoses on drugs on his 27^th birthday and leaves behind a bunch of cryptic Post-it notes, which don’t exactly explain why he did it, but do acknowledge that 27 is a magic number.

Anderson is the best thing this film has going for it. He plays Elliot with such laconic rock-star coolness and detachment, it’s startling every time he opens his mouth to utter a coherent sentence. Deeply depressed after identifying Tom’s body at the morgue—their story is told in flashbacks—he sets off from L.A. in a convertible, on a cross-country trip to New York for the funeral, first stopping in his home town of (Janis) Joplin, Missouri, to deliver one of the Post-it notes to Tom’s father (David Sherrill), a former Marine, who does not look kindly upon the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

What we have here is a beautifully photographed, though essentially plotless road movie, with lots of nice desert scenery, a couple of numerology clues in the form of addresses and room numbers slipped in, and an array of quirky characters Elliot meets along the way. They include a nerdy, prayerful store clerk (David Emrich) whom Elliot hires for $10,000 cash to be his driver; a much too clean homeless man (Jimmy Hager) who sings in a mission choir; and Stella (Eve Hewson), a young hitchhiker and hardcore Finn fan who recognizes Elliot, but keeps it to herself and remains totally and unbelievably blasé in his presence. (Perhaps she acts this way because Hewson is Bono’s daughter and presumably unaffected by the rock-star aura.)

And though these implausible characters (along with a couple of ineffectual New York record executives) and a weak ending [POSSIBLE SPOILER]—a mission choir brought in to sing at Tom’s funeral does not actually sing—detract from The 27 Club’s overall appeal, it still remains an enjoyable film about an unusual subject that kept me engaged throughout.