Free Jimmy

Free Jimmy
Film poster
Directed by	Christopher Nielsen
Written by	Christopher Nielsen
Produced by	Håkon Gundersen Lars Andreas Hellebust
Starring	English Version Woody Harrelson Simon Pegg Phil Daniels Jay Simpson Emilia Fox Samantha Morton James Cosmo David Tennant
Edited by	Alastair Reid
Music by	Simon Boswell
Distributed by	Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International (Norway) Breakthru Films (United Kingdom)
Release dates	21 April 2006 (2006-04-21) (Norway) 17 October 2008 (2008-10-17) (United Kingdom)
Running time	86 minutes
Countries	Norway[1] United Kingdom[1]
Languages	English Norwegian

Free Jimmy (No: Slipp Jimmy fri) is a 2006 adult computer-animated comedy film first released in Norwegian in 2006, and later in English in 2008. The film was written and directed by acclaimed Norwegian subculture comic book artist Christopher Nielsen and features a number of characters from Nielsen's dark humor-laden comic books. The plot is an adult-oriented black comedy in which different groups of varying nationalities, and motives, all attempt to find a wayward and drug-addicted elephant in the Norwegian wilderness before the others do. The film explores a wide number of themes including addiction, drug abuse, freedom, nature, tragedy, crime, materialism, urban decay, animal cruelty and animal rights.

It was Norway's first computer animated film. Costing in excess of 120 million Norwegian kroner it is the second most expensive Norwegian film to date, behind Max Manus. Several British CGI studios were involved in the production of the film, although the film was mostly a Norwegian production. The voice actors for the original Norwegian version included Kristopher Schau, Jan Sælid, Are&Odin, Egil Birkeland, Terje Ragner, Anders T. Andersen and Mikkel Gaup.

British comedy writer and actor Simon Pegg wrote a screenplay for the wider English-speaking world which was subsequently released straight to DVD on 7 October 2008 by BreakThru Films. The voice actors of the 2008 English-language version is made up of an international ensemble cast that includes Pegg himself, Woody Harrelson, Phil Daniels, Jay Simpson, Jim Broadbent, James Cosmo, David Tennant, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss, Megan Dodds, Douglas Henshall, Kris Marshall, Emilia Fox, Samantha Morton, Kyle MacLachlan and Lisa Maxwell.

The film is dedicated to Joachim Nielsen (1964–2000), the director's brother and a rock musician famous in his native Norway, who had died of a drug overdose after quitting them successfully for many years. Whilst well received in its native country, reception to Free Jimmy has been mixed to negative in the English-speaking world.

Plot[]

The events of the original movie take place entirely in Norway; in the English-language version of the movie, the story begins in Britain and ends up in Norway with the travelling Russian circus.

At night, an animal testing laboratory in grimy downtown Oslo in Norway is broken into by the "urban guerrillas", a group of bumbling vegan animal rights activists. They first release some rabbits which refuse to leave. They then set the rats free, then the cats, which to the horror of the activists, eat the rats. They then release a small yapping dog which in turn, again to their horror, kills the cats. They bury the dead animals, vowing to at some point take revenge on "animal oppressing" society. One of them, Sonia, a British highly-strung and anxiety-stricken woman, keeps the dog and names the dog "Karma".

Meanwhile, three inept Cockney English stoners and bungling habitual criminals named Odd, Gaz and Flea (Odd, Geir and Kælle in the Norwegian version) sit around in a decrepit apartment, watching the news story about the lab break-in. Their shady Southern American friend Roy Arnie (a fellow Norwegian childhood friend in the original) arrives and offers them a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity with Circus Stromowski, a travelling Russian circus led by Ringmaster Igor Stromowski. The lads agree as they are in debt with Roy Arnie and it is apparently a good money-raiser and to escape a local gangster named Ivan. However, upon arriving at the circus, they find Stromowski to be utterly deranged, the acts dangerous and the performers suicidal. The entire circus is full of useless, miserable has-beens and tired animals that will only perform under the influence of narcotics. What's more, the four lads are actually to be animal handlers with the dangerous animals in the circus stable. The star attraction is "Jimmy", a captive large male elephant who is paranoid of police and with an earring and half a tusk sawn off. Roy Arnie gives Jimmy speed to incite the animal to go crazy and perform in the ring for the spectators. At night, he gives Jimmy heroin to sedate him. Soon the elephant becomes addicted.

Roy admits to the others that he has stolen over a million pounds worth of heroin from a tanker owned by the Russian Mafias and that he joined the circus to escape them. The four lads hatch a plan to smuggle the heroin out of Norway by putting it inside the elephant. Roy makes an incision in Jimmy's buttocks, places the bags of drugs inside and then sews it back up. He has a plan to set up his own circus with the money he makes from the heroin, the "Roy Arnie Circus", and believes Jimmy to be the key to his dream. However, on the night where the lads plan to steal the elephant, Jimmy escapes when he is accidentally given speed instead of heroin and bolts out of a door left open by the animal rights activists. Jimmy's drug-induced escape causes widespread chaos. Flea comically steals a van with no windshield in the ensuing chase of Jimmy which leads them up into the frozen moorland.

Three Lappish Mafia motorbikers dressed in traditional Sámi garb clothes have been tailing the lads the whole time. These motorbikers turn out to be members of the highly feared "Laplander motorcycle gang" who have been hired by the Russian Mafias and are looking for the heroin and revenge on Roy Arnie. After overhearing their conversations which they learn of where the drugs are and decide to first go after the elephant. Meanwhile, the animal rights activists are hot on Jimmy's trail with the intention of rescuing Jimmy. Jimmy is also hunted by a group of trigger-happy and redneck-type Scottish big game hunters (trøndere in the Norwegian version) who want to shoot something bigger than a moose or a deer for a change. So it begins a mad-cap and cross-country road trip to find Jimmy with each group having different motives. The four stoners find a log cabin which is occupied by an elderly Asian-American couple but the three Lappish Mafia motorbikers find them there, kill the couple and torture the four stoners for the information on the whereabouts of Jimmy the elephant.

Jimmy nearly dies on the moors as he begins to go through withdrawal, although a seemingly intelligent and benevolent moose with golden antlers befriends the elephant and attempts to nurse him back to health by nudging him towards water and bringing him grass to eat. The moose pushes Jimmy into a rocky overhang, protecting the elephant from the elements. The moose forces Jimmy to stand on occasion by pushing him up and holding him up with his antlers, bringing back the strength in Jimmy's legs. Over the course of a few painful days with the moose's help, Jimmy makes a full recovery from the drugs and again becomes one with nature away from the ugly trappings of man.

When the groups converge on Jimmy's location, chaos ensues which results in most of the people involved getting killed in various ways, mostly violent and bloody. As the elephant and the moose escape into the sunset, the elephant accidentally steps on Sonia the activist's dog, Karma, splatting it. Sonia momentarily loses her temper and picks up one of the hunters' rifles and shoots Jimmy in the behind, unwittingly bursting the bags of heroin inside and causing Jimmy to die quickly of massive drug overdose. This causes Sonia to recoil in horror in what she has done and she flees amidst nervous breakdown in the knowledge that she has harmed an animal. The moose causes a landslide which buries Jimmy's body and after the moose sits poignantly by the mound of rocks which now entomb the elephant, the moose gallops off into the sunset alone.

The only other survivors of the massacre, the four stoners, do not witness these events and are back at their apartment home to assault Roy for leading them to the situation in the first place because of his mad circus dreams and "for Jimmy", "our mate." Finally, Roy, full of remorse over his actions in the past, wanders out onto the moors alone to look for the elephant, unaware that Jimmy is already dead and entombed under rocks and out of sight. Roy disappears into a terrible blizzard calling out "Jimmy" in vain.

English-language version[]

Overview[]

The plot of the English-language version of the film remains virtually unchanged to the original in Norwegian. The audio track is dubbed over with English voices, with contemporary British dialogue written by Simon Pegg, and Pegg receives credit in the screenplay. It was released on DVD on 7 October 2008, by BreakThru Films, with Bill Godfrey as Executive Producer.

Unlike the original which was released in cinemas in Norway, Free Jimmy was a direct-to-video release in the English speaking world.

Although only the audio has been changed in the English-language version, the new dialogue makes for some changes to the original Norwegian film. For example, Roy, Odd, Flea and Baz are cockneys from London instead of east enders from Oslo in Norway (that curiously enough has a similar working class type of sociolect as cockneys from east London). The rest of the film does however still take place in Norway, as the Londoners end up there anyway as they travel with the touring Russian circus. Other significant plot changes are obvious, such as other characters are made British instead of Norwegian, and the redneck-type hunting party are apparently Scottish in the English-language version.

Cast[]

The voice actors of the English-language version make up an international ensemble cast that include:

Themes[]

Free Jimmy explores a wide number of themes including addiction, drug abuse, freedom, nature, tragedy, crime, materialism, urban decay, animal cruelty and animal rights.

Release[]

Film festival premieres[]

• The 2006 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France – May 25, 2006
• The Helsinki International Film Festival in Helsinki, Finland – September 15, 2006
• The Hong Kong International Film Festival in Hong Kong, China – March 20, 2007
• The Copenhagen Film Festival for Children and Youth in Copenhagen, Denmark – September 16, 2007
• The Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada – November 18, 2007
• The Busan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea – October 20, 2006
• The Palm Springs International Film Festival in Palm Springs, California in the USA – January 15, 2007

Theatrical releases[]

Free Jimmy was theatrically released in Norway on April 21, 2006, Finland on November 17, 2006, Sweden on April 27, 2007, Russia on November 22, 2007, the United Kingdom on October 17, 2008 and the Netherlands on January 28, 2010.

DVD release in the United Kingdom[]

Free Jimmy was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2010 by Granada Ventures.

Reception[]

Box office[]

Free Jimmy grossed $2.3 million worldwide.^[2]

Critical response[]

English film critic and historian Derek Malcolm of The London Evening Standard gave the film two out of five stars and wrote “But the characters don't add to the conception. Nor does the basic animation.”

Free Jimmy has an approval rating of 10% based on 10 reviews from aggregate ratings site Rotten Tomatoes.^[3] The website's critical consensus reads, "A weird, misfiring, Norwegian animated mess of a film. Unsure of who its target audience is, it misses every target." Xan Brooks of The Guardian described it as "joyless" and those who watch it to be "dumb animals themselves" and wrote "Free Jimmy is a sledgehammer Norwegian animation that metes out all manner of cruelty to dumb animals, not least the ones in the audience."^[4] Many Norwegian fans noted that depth of story was missing in the new version and that the overall message of the film and the original ironic humour had been lost in translation and the target audience had become unclear.

Richard Luck of Film4 wrote "Norway may be wonderful for many things but feature-length animation currently isn't one of them." James Christopher of Times (UK) called the film "deeply unhinged" and "deeply awful". Tim Evans of Sky Cinema gave the film one out of five stars and wrote "They say an elephant never forgets. But even the most anally-retentive pachyderm would be desperate to banish this misfiring mess to the darkest reaches of memory." Anthony Quinn of Independent (UK) also gave the film one out of five stars and wrote "The brief relationship that the escaped elephant forms with a resourceful moose is oddly touching, but the fatuities surrounding it ensure that any deeper involvement is unlikely." Derek Malcolm of The London Evening Standard gave the film two out of five stars and wrote "But the characters don't add to the conception. Nor does the basic animation." Leslie Felperin of Variety wrote "Pic could be too dark, dirty and insufficiently funny to achieve more than cult success." Derek Adams of Time Out London gave Free Jimmy three out of six stars, saying: "This adult-orientated, computer-generated animation isn't an especially successful outing but still serves as an impressive antidote to the Disney-Pixar norm."^[5]

Accolades and awards[]

In 2007, the film’s director and writer Christopher Nielsen won a Cristal Award for Best Feature at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

References[]

External links[]

• Free Jimmy at IMDb
• Free Jimmy at Rotten Tomatoes
• Official homepage – English version
• Official homepage – Norwegian version