Certainly a movie to promote food for thought but I found it a bit hard-work at times. The period drama running throughout, was well filmed but it did not make much sense to me. Still has some well constructed scenes, maybe could gain a cult following of sorts. The story is like an interesting take on Karma. Funny and sexy in places. The 10/10 reviews and 1/10 review are highly misleading.
14 Reviews
A Vitriolic Masterpiece
pasakor21 February 2002
Not too often a film like this comes along. When it does however it demands your attention. Based the cult novel by B. S. Johnson, with Peter Greenaway's collaborator Kees Kasander in production and Luke Haines' of Auters and Black Box Recorder behind the soundtrack, Christie Malry's Own Double Entry lays a claim upon the title of the best English film (almost)no one saw.
Christie lives with his mother, and works in a bank. When he discovers the simple bookkeeping principle of double entries - a debit for every credit - the picture starts to clear: he charges himself for every insult received, and credits society for every insult he returns. His «credit-rate» starts from simple acts of vandalism, and escalate to a magnificent, misanthropic plan. Suddenly, Christie's life finds a shocking new meaning.
Brilliant and unsparing, mordant and seductive, this film is an act of courage on it's own. You might find it too much to take if your view of the world is blurred by Hollywood romantic comedies, but if you give it a chance it might change your life -or at least two hours of it...
Christie lives with his mother, and works in a bank. When he discovers the simple bookkeeping principle of double entries - a debit for every credit - the picture starts to clear: he charges himself for every insult received, and credits society for every insult he returns. His «credit-rate» starts from simple acts of vandalism, and escalate to a magnificent, misanthropic plan. Suddenly, Christie's life finds a shocking new meaning.
Brilliant and unsparing, mordant and seductive, this film is an act of courage on it's own. You might find it too much to take if your view of the world is blurred by Hollywood romantic comedies, but if you give it a chance it might change your life -or at least two hours of it...
Not flawless but fine
glynyfaron6 September 2002
With a limited budget and resources, Paul Tickell has done a fantastic job of bringing Johnson's unique perspective to the screen. Nick Moran does well at playing a character that is almost a cipher but has a darkness within him that no-one detects until it's far too late. References to Princess Diana and attacks on Iraq bring the tale right up to date and, frustrating as it was, I can see why this was pulled from its original mid-September release date.
Luke Haines is a God.
Luke Haines is a God.
One of the worst movies I have ever seen
redcrippler12 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
There are many things about this movie which had me both yelling at the screen and at those that were watching the movie with me. The scenes that use fire look so bad that they should have been left out completely, especially since they were not originally in the book. The scenes from the renaissance period added nothing at all to the movie yet take up about a third of the film. Christie Malry's mother and childhood friend are characters that either should not have been shown or should have actually been used to move the plot along. In closing this was a movie that barely seemed to have a focus and had too many characters and scenes that had no business being in the movie, try to avoid watching it.
Entertaining, gripping, thought provoking
K1124 November 2002
The film, set in 1999, is a version of a novel from the seventies about a young man from Hammersmith's London Irish Community, Christy Malry who decides to live his life according to the principles of double entry bookkeeping. For every debit he exacts a credit or recompense. This starts as means to avenge dismissive or rude workmates but evolves into being against society, the more credit owed to him the more extreme his means become. This is against a backdrop of news of America and Britain bombing Iraq. Eventually Christy starts making the news.
In a parallel plot we see the life of the monk, Pacioli who invented double entry bookkeeping in renaissance Italy (we are witnessing the birth of capitalism as we know it) and his dealings with his patrons and Leonardo Da Vinci. It illustrates the death of the old system of religious patronage and new system where everything (including loyalty) has a price.
This is an unusual, intensely gripping story, superbly acted by the entire cast, although Nick Moran as Christy and Shirley-Anne Field as his cancer-ridden mother deserve a particular mention. The unsettling atmosphere is supplied through the superb direction of Paul Tickell and an evocative score by Luke Haines.
A world-beating independent film to go and see. Ten out of ten.
In a parallel plot we see the life of the monk, Pacioli who invented double entry bookkeeping in renaissance Italy (we are witnessing the birth of capitalism as we know it) and his dealings with his patrons and Leonardo Da Vinci. It illustrates the death of the old system of religious patronage and new system where everything (including loyalty) has a price.
This is an unusual, intensely gripping story, superbly acted by the entire cast, although Nick Moran as Christy and Shirley-Anne Field as his cancer-ridden mother deserve a particular mention. The unsettling atmosphere is supplied through the superb direction of Paul Tickell and an evocative score by Luke Haines.
A world-beating independent film to go and see. Ten out of ten.
I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass
Ali_John_Catterall4 November 2009
Before it was picked up by ILC Pictures (handlers of Urban Ghost Story, among others) Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry caused a minor furore on the film circuit. Most distributors turned it down, prompting leading man Nick Moran to dash off missives to all and sundry, pleading for its release.
It's easy to see why they were nervous: as with his debut feature, Dublin-based outlaw yarn Crush Proof, director Paul Tickell would rather chew off his own leg than compromise his vision. As Moran says (with more than a hint of past grievances), "Malry... isn't some Mockney film, or romantic comedy." In this visually audacious, updated adaptation of the short novel by cult writer BS Johnson (who committed suicide in 1975), Moran plays the eponymous, none-too-gifted nerd, waging war on his enemies - real and imagined - using a simple, if highly effective credit and debit system.
Before the first hour's up, callous bosses, and others (including the Inland Revenue, the newsagent who sold his cancerous mother her cigarettes, Ben Elton and Oasis) have been duly filed away in the 'debit' bracket, and 'credited' with anything from a bomb through the window, to mass murder via the nation's water supply. (Media terrorist Chris Morris is a 'credit'.) Though shot well before 11 September 2001, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry is bizarrely prophetic in places too - with its scenes of terrorism, governmental panic, and planes over the Middle East (direct results of Malry's extra curricular activities). By the time "God" has been singled out for more than a Chinese burn, Malry's fate is a foregone conclusion.
Interwoven throughout is a joint storyline - set in the 15th century and concerning Leonardo Da Vinci and the Franciscan monk who originally dreamt up the Double Entry system - though this works less effectively.
Following up a true original like Crush Proof wasn't going to be easy, but Tickell has just about pulled it off. Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry is a demented hybrid of Billy Liar and twisted Nietzschean excess, and every frame crackles with energy. The film is further enhanced by a terrific soundtrack by Auteurs frontman Luke Haines. Just don't expect to enjoy your hotdog.
It's easy to see why they were nervous: as with his debut feature, Dublin-based outlaw yarn Crush Proof, director Paul Tickell would rather chew off his own leg than compromise his vision. As Moran says (with more than a hint of past grievances), "Malry... isn't some Mockney film, or romantic comedy." In this visually audacious, updated adaptation of the short novel by cult writer BS Johnson (who committed suicide in 1975), Moran plays the eponymous, none-too-gifted nerd, waging war on his enemies - real and imagined - using a simple, if highly effective credit and debit system.
Before the first hour's up, callous bosses, and others (including the Inland Revenue, the newsagent who sold his cancerous mother her cigarettes, Ben Elton and Oasis) have been duly filed away in the 'debit' bracket, and 'credited' with anything from a bomb through the window, to mass murder via the nation's water supply. (Media terrorist Chris Morris is a 'credit'.) Though shot well before 11 September 2001, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry is bizarrely prophetic in places too - with its scenes of terrorism, governmental panic, and planes over the Middle East (direct results of Malry's extra curricular activities). By the time "God" has been singled out for more than a Chinese burn, Malry's fate is a foregone conclusion.
Interwoven throughout is a joint storyline - set in the 15th century and concerning Leonardo Da Vinci and the Franciscan monk who originally dreamt up the Double Entry system - though this works less effectively.
Following up a true original like Crush Proof wasn't going to be easy, but Tickell has just about pulled it off. Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry is a demented hybrid of Billy Liar and twisted Nietzschean excess, and every frame crackles with energy. The film is further enhanced by a terrific soundtrack by Auteurs frontman Luke Haines. Just don't expect to enjoy your hotdog.
How to destroy a novel in one easy lesson.
20222229 April 2004
Warning: Spoilers
So you're a fan of B. S. Johnson's novel 'Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry', you admire his experimentation and playfulness with the literary form, you enjoy the black humour and anti-capitalist message, and, most importantly, the manner in which Johnson never allows his reader to forget that this is a work of fiction, using such devices as Christie himself talking directly to the author?
Then on no account watch this film.
You'll spend the whole time shouting at the screen wondering how they could have missed the point so comprehensively. In an interview on the DVD the screenwriter claims to have stayed faithful to the book, which is laughable. I won't go into too much detail, but here's two key point for you to think about:
1) The biggest debit recorded by Christie is that socialism has not been given a chance. This is essentially the political message of the novel, but not mentioned in the film.
2) In the film, Christie en-route to Westminster when his own bomb destroys the bus he is riding on. The implication is that he causes his own downfall, is responsible for his own death. In the book, he dies from cancer, randomly. So the complexity and open-endedness of the book (Johnson refuses to tell us if he destroys parliament or not) is lost is the cause of a nice understandable ending that will not tax the brains of the audience.
All in all, enormously disappointing. B. S. Johnson subversively refuses to to describe Christie, saying we must create him in our own way (like God). So I suppose all sorts of interpretations are acceptable, but this is a very, very poor one.
Luke Haines's soundtrack is excellent, though.
Then on no account watch this film.
You'll spend the whole time shouting at the screen wondering how they could have missed the point so comprehensively. In an interview on the DVD the screenwriter claims to have stayed faithful to the book, which is laughable. I won't go into too much detail, but here's two key point for you to think about:
1) The biggest debit recorded by Christie is that socialism has not been given a chance. This is essentially the political message of the novel, but not mentioned in the film.
2) In the film, Christie en-route to Westminster when his own bomb destroys the bus he is riding on. The implication is that he causes his own downfall, is responsible for his own death. In the book, he dies from cancer, randomly. So the complexity and open-endedness of the book (Johnson refuses to tell us if he destroys parliament or not) is lost is the cause of a nice understandable ending that will not tax the brains of the audience.
All in all, enormously disappointing. B. S. Johnson subversively refuses to to describe Christie, saying we must create him in our own way (like God). So I suppose all sorts of interpretations are acceptable, but this is a very, very poor one.
Luke Haines's soundtrack is excellent, though.
Go see this film
Minkey25 November 2002
Track this film down, if you can. It's one of those rare films that surprises, intrigues, and sets you thinking. And not only about bookkeeping as a way to keep the record straight -- both personal and political. It questions the dull conformity that so many of us are accepting -- why do we?
fantastic!!!
makisathens22 September 2001
I see it in a festival in Athens.Brilliant English film!Hard to explain!What can i say??You M-U-S-T see this film!I can't write very good English,so i can't write a lot of the plot of the film.Go see it and you will see something you will remember a long time!
Great British Film, criminally not on big-scale release
Gerald-88 September 2002
This is a very sharp british film, one of the best since trainspotting. The lighting, editing and music are very snappy and bring to mind (along with much of the dialogue and hints of the plot) Fight Club.
I went mostly cos it had Neil Stuke in it (right from Game On, I've loved everything he's been in) but its genuinely entertaining, funny and compassionate.
We can only hope that the future makes it big elsewhere - as Croupier did.
I went mostly cos it had Neil Stuke in it (right from Game On, I've loved everything he's been in) but its genuinely entertaining, funny and compassionate.
We can only hope that the future makes it big elsewhere - as Croupier did.
wicked
fight_club@poem.org13 August 2002
This movie is one of the best. If it ever gets released on video, it possibly could be the film that helps Nick Moran get past Lock, Stock. What I mean is, perhaps everyone will stop refering to him as "That Guy From Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." Lock stock was a great film but it was four years ago...time to progress PEOPLE! Anyway, Christie Malry is a good film that everyone should see.
A book-keeping Billy Liar starts his own Fightclub-like crusade worthy of the Unibomber....
Afzal-s20073 May 2009
Christie Malry's Own Double Entry should get a rare reprieve from the vaults of British film obscurity, a rare thing in British film, particularly as it came out during the attack of British idiotic Indies, out-and-out failures, mostly funded by the Taxpayer (e.g Shooting Fish, Rancid Aluminium, Lock, Stock.... etc).
Most of those films came and went. But Christie Malry, based on the novel of cult English experimentalist novelist BS Johnson, and in which Lock Stock actor Moran plays the lead, is the best of these, although ironically it was never released or given any attention, presumably due to its playful, po-faced attitude to terrorism, which would never play post 9/11 (it was made before those events). This in itself is ironic, as Christie is an interesting study in terrorism, a sort of book-keeping Billy Liar who starts his own Fight Club-like crusade worthy of the UniBomber, which attains an added poignancy post 9/11- after all, in the film, made remember in 1999, Christie's surreptitious efforts help start the second Gulf War (and he is portrayed by the media as an Arab).
I understand some of the criticisms of the film made by others below, such as Christie's unbelievable jobs, although Christie's bizarre double-entry system- e.g. "debit: Wagner's Lack of Sympathy: Credit: girl at butcher's shop smiled at me", to my mind makes him a more believable character- after all, he is hardly a balanced character.
I can add some more myself (the failure to update the seventies novel to the present decade, leading to weird anachronisms- a result of lack of funding or attention in art direction?). But I also believe the film is a brave attempt at finding intelligence and depth in the British indie.
Tickell is clearly an admirer of Greenaway, and this shows throughout, in the film's theatrical flair and sense of the visual, as well as the oddball eroticism, all part a way of understanding Christie's abnormal psychology. This is particularly evident in the 'historical' sub-plot of the film (the development of double-bookkeeping in Renaissance Milan by a priest with links to Da Vinci).
And I think the acting is marvellous throughout, particularly the Renaisance Italians and Shirley Ann Field as Christie's mother, and Moran, while not a brilliant actor, clearly works hard in the complex task of being Christie (he says it is his best film, although I don't think there's much competition- with the exception of Puritan, another little known British Indie with Moran at its centre).
Most of those films came and went. But Christie Malry, based on the novel of cult English experimentalist novelist BS Johnson, and in which Lock Stock actor Moran plays the lead, is the best of these, although ironically it was never released or given any attention, presumably due to its playful, po-faced attitude to terrorism, which would never play post 9/11 (it was made before those events). This in itself is ironic, as Christie is an interesting study in terrorism, a sort of book-keeping Billy Liar who starts his own Fight Club-like crusade worthy of the UniBomber, which attains an added poignancy post 9/11- after all, in the film, made remember in 1999, Christie's surreptitious efforts help start the second Gulf War (and he is portrayed by the media as an Arab).
I understand some of the criticisms of the film made by others below, such as Christie's unbelievable jobs, although Christie's bizarre double-entry system- e.g. "debit: Wagner's Lack of Sympathy: Credit: girl at butcher's shop smiled at me", to my mind makes him a more believable character- after all, he is hardly a balanced character.
I can add some more myself (the failure to update the seventies novel to the present decade, leading to weird anachronisms- a result of lack of funding or attention in art direction?). But I also believe the film is a brave attempt at finding intelligence and depth in the British indie.
Tickell is clearly an admirer of Greenaway, and this shows throughout, in the film's theatrical flair and sense of the visual, as well as the oddball eroticism, all part a way of understanding Christie's abnormal psychology. This is particularly evident in the 'historical' sub-plot of the film (the development of double-bookkeeping in Renaissance Milan by a priest with links to Da Vinci).
And I think the acting is marvellous throughout, particularly the Renaisance Italians and Shirley Ann Field as Christie's mother, and Moran, while not a brilliant actor, clearly works hard in the complex task of being Christie (he says it is his best film, although I don't think there's much competition- with the exception of Puritan, another little known British Indie with Moran at its centre).
good...
blindmansarrow18 April 2003
it's great that someone in this country is trying to make movies that are different and thought provoking. nick moran is excellent as christie and i'm looking forward to see what he does in the future. the only problem is this film depressed me to the very core. i'm not denying that it's good it's just that in hindsight i wish i'd spent those couple of hours watching something that did'nt make me want to cry. if however you are'nt an emotional cripple like myself, please give this movie a try and support independant film. tell them i sent ya.
The Uk's very own "Fight Club!"
nikjcannon25 November 2004
At last! a decent British film that actually made me laugh out loud
at the dark, dark humour on display throughout this film. OK, so it
can't compete visually with Hollywood, and the ending is
somewhat shoe-horned in uncomfortably, but, it does have some
fine under stated acting and an anti-capitalist message we can all
relate to, to some extent at least! . Watch, as the seemingly dim
witted Christy see's the light and puts a shape to the confusion of
adulthood with a simple but single minded plan to have his
retribution on the powers that be that make his life difficult. Every
debit must have a credit indeed! See this film, then go read the
book. Good soundtrack,but bad, bad DVD cover, this won't help people
pick it up in Blockbusters!
at the dark, dark humour on display throughout this film. OK, so it
can't compete visually with Hollywood, and the ending is
somewhat shoe-horned in uncomfortably, but, it does have some
fine under stated acting and an anti-capitalist message we can all
relate to, to some extent at least! . Watch, as the seemingly dim
witted Christy see's the light and puts a shape to the confusion of
adulthood with a simple but single minded plan to have his
retribution on the powers that be that make his life difficult. Every
debit must have a credit indeed! See this film, then go read the
book. Good soundtrack,but bad, bad DVD cover, this won't help people
pick it up in Blockbusters!
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