Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (2000)

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.

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).

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.

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...