Free Jimmy
Encyclopedia
Free Jimmy is a Norwegian
/British
computer animated
feature film
first released in Norwegian language
in 2006
, and later in English language
in 2008. The film was written and directed by acclaimed Norwegian subculture
comic book
artist Christopher Nielsen
. The plot is an adult-oriented black comedy
which explores a wide number of themes, amongst them freedom, nature
, tragedy
, crime
, greed, materialism
, urban decay
, drug abuse
and animal cruelty. A large number of the characters in the film are from director Christopher Nielsen's dark humor-laden comic books.
Free Jimmy was Norway's first computer animated film, and costing in excess of 120 million Norwegian krone
r it is the second most expensive Norwegian film to date, behind Max Manus
. Several British CGI studios were involved in the production of Free Jimmy, 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 on DVD
on 7 October 2008 by BreakThru Films. Pegg voiced a major character in the English language version. Other voice actors in this version made up an international ensemble cast
that includes Woody Harrelson
, David Tennant
, Kyle MacLachlan
, Emilia Fox
, Samantha Morton
, Jim Broadbent
, James Cosmo
, Phil Daniels
and Jay Simpson
.
at Slave Studios, the CGI company owned by animation producer Andy Frain
. However, the main company involved in the production was Storm Studio, a Norwegian company.
By January 2004 it was apparent that the total budget would be three times as originally planned, and the premiere was pushed back a year. It became the most expensive film ever made in Norway at the time, until the film Max Manus
was produced two years later on a bigger budget.
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
.
laboratory in grimy downtown Oslo
is broken into by a group of vegan animal rights activists calling themselves the "urban guerillas". They first release some rabbits, which refuse to leave. They then set the rats free, then cats, which to the horror of the activists, eat the rats. They then release a 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 highly-strung anxiety-stricken woman, keeps the dog and names the dog "Karma
".
Meanwhile, three inept 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 American friend Roy Arnie arrives and offers them a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity with Circus Stromowski, a travelling Russia
n 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 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 ear ring 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 is hooked on the drugs, a junkie. 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 circus.
Roy Arnie admits to the others that he has stolen over a million pounds worth of heroin which he stole from a tanker belonging to the Russian Mafia
, and that he decided on the circus to escape them. The four lads hatch a plan to smuggle the heroin out of Norway by putting all the heroin 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 potentially made from the heroin, the "Roy Arnie Circus", and believes Jimmy to be the key to his dream. However on the night the lads plan to steal the elephant, Jimmy escapes when he is accidentally given speed instead of heroin, and he bolts out of a door left open by the animal rights activists. Jimmy's drug-induced escape causes widespead chaos. Flea comically steals a van with no windshield in the ensuing chase of Jimmy, which leads them up into the frozen moorland
.
Three bizarrely-dressed bikers
who have been tailing the lads the whole time turn out to be three members of the highly feared "Laplander
Mafia
" who have been hired by the Russians and are looking for the heroin, and revenge on Roy Arnie. After overhearing their conversations 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 hunted by a group of trigger happy, redneck
-type big game hunters who want to shoot something bigger than a moose for a change. So begins a mad cap cross country road trip
to find Jimmy, with different groups with different motives. The four stoners crash a log cabin
which is occupied by an elderly American couple, but the three Lappish Mafia bikers find them there, kill the couple and torture the four stoners for information on the whereabouts of Jimmy the elephant.
Jimmy nearly dies on the moors as he begins to go through cold turkey
, although a seemingly intelligent and benevolent moose
with gold
en 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. As the elephant and the moose escape into the sunset, Jimmy 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 within minutes (probably of drug overdose
). This causes Sonia to recoil in horror in what she has done, and then she and her friend scream and run off. The moose causes a landslide which buries Jimmy's body, and after the moose sits poignantly by the mound of rocks which now entomb Jimmy, it gallops off into the sunset alone. The only other survivors of the massacre, the four stoners, do not witness these events and believing Jimmy still alive they continue to look for Jimmy on the moors. Eventually, they all beat up Roy Arnie for leading them to the situation in the first place, because of his mad circus dreams, and "for Jimmy", "our mate". At the end of the film, full of remorse over what he has done in the past, Roy Arnie goes out alone into a terrible blizzard
on the moors to look for Jimmy, who he does not know is dead.
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 Oslo
in Norway. 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.
that include:
r in profit. It was critically well-received. However when the English language version was released to the wider world in 2008, it was a direct-to-video
release. The English language version has not yet been shown in cinemas.
However, the later English language version has received mixed reviews, mostly negative. These include a scathing review by Xan Brooks of The Guardian
who described it as "joyless" and those who watch it to be "dumb animals themselves". 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 humor had been lost in translation. Free Jimmy currently has a "rotten" rating of only 10% on aggregate ratings site Rotten Tomatoes
. Free Jimmy currently has a three star rating out of five on MSN Movies.
Cinema of Norway
Norway has had a notable cinema industry for some time. In the early 21st century a few Norwegian film directors have had the opportunity to go to Hollywood to direct various independent films.-1940s:*Tante Pose *Bastard *Tørres Snørtevold...
/British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
computer animated
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
first released in Norwegian language
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
in 2006
2006 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...
, and later in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in 2008. The film was written and directed by acclaimed Norwegian subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
artist Christopher Nielsen
Christopher Nielsen
Christopher Nielsen is a Norwegian comics artist. He is especially known for his subcultural depictions. Nielsen got his first comics printed in 1980 after entering a competition in the Norwegian anarchist magazine, Gateavisa. Only three years later he got his first album published...
. The plot is an adult-oriented black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
which explores a wide number of themes, amongst them freedom, nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, greed, materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
, drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
and animal cruelty. A large number of the characters in the film are from director Christopher Nielsen's dark humor-laden comic books.
Free Jimmy was Norway's first computer animated film, and costing in excess of 120 million Norwegian krone
Norwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...
r it is the second most expensive Norwegian film to date, behind Max Manus
Max Manus (film)
Max Manus is a Norwegian 2008 biographic war film based on the real events of the life of resistance fighter Max Manus . The story follows Manus from the Winter War against the Soviet Union, through the outbreak of World War II and the German occupation of Norway until peacetime in 1945...
. Several British CGI studios were involved in the production of Free Jimmy, although the film was mostly a Norwegian production. The voice actors for the original Norwegian version included Kristopher Schau
Kristopher Schau
Kristopher Hugh Martin Schau is a Norwegian musician, TV host, comedian, author and songwriter.-Radio and television shows:...
, Jan Sælid, Are&Odin, Egil Birkeland, Terje Ragner, Anders T. Andersen and Mikkel Gaup.
British comedy writer and actor Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
wrote a screenplay for the wider English-speaking world which was subsequently released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on 7 October 2008 by BreakThru Films. Pegg voiced a major character in the English language version. Other voice actors in this version made up an international ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
that includes Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson
Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd...
, David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
, Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
, Emilia Fox
Emilia Fox
Emilia Rose Elizabeth Fox is an award-winning English actress, known for her role as Dr. Nikki Alexander on BBC crime drama Silent Witness, having joined the cast in 2004 following the departure of Amanda Burton. She also appears as Morgause in the BBC's Merlin beginning in the programme's second...
, Samantha Morton
Samantha Morton
Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes...
, Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
, James Cosmo
James Cosmo
James Cosmo is a prolific Scottish actor, with numerous credits in film and television since the late 1960s and Cosmo is still currently acting. Cosmo was born in Clydebank, Scotland, the son of actor James Copeland...
, Phil Daniels
Phil Daniels
Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...
and Jay Simpson
Jay Simpson (actor)
Jay Simpson is a prolific English film, television and stage actor.Simpson is perhaps best known in television for portraying cockney desk sergeant Ian 'Brookie' Brooke in Foyle's War, he has also appeared on television in Recovery with David Tennant and Sarah Parish, Hot Money, Bad Crowd, A Touch...
.
Production
Free Jimmy is the first computer animated feature film made in Norway, and the film took nine years to make. Several Norwegian companies were involved in the production and distribution, although a significant part of the film was produced in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at Slave Studios, the CGI company owned by animation producer Andy Frain
Andy Frain
Andy Frain is an animation producer and the founder & managing director of Touchwood Animation Ltd.- Biography :Frain’s career started in the music industry, working as a product manager for CBS Records and latterly as marketing director for Island Records...
. However, the main company involved in the production was Storm Studio, a Norwegian company.
By January 2004 it was apparent that the total budget would be three times as originally planned, and the premiere was pushed back a year. It became the most expensive film ever made in Norway at the time, until the film Max Manus
Max Manus (film)
Max Manus is a Norwegian 2008 biographic war film based on the real events of the life of resistance fighter Max Manus . The story follows Manus from the Winter War against the Soviet Union, through the outbreak of World War II and the German occupation of Norway until peacetime in 1945...
was produced two years later on a bigger budget.
The film is dedicated to Joachim Nielsen
Joachim Nielsen
Joachim Nielsen , better known as Jokke, was a Norwegian rock musician and poet. He was the frontman of Norwegian rock band Jokke & Valentinerne, the brother of cartoonist Christopher Nielsen, and son of the artist John David Nielsen...
(1964–2000), the director's brother and a rock musician famous in his native Norway, who had died of a drug overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
.
Plot
At night, an animal testingAnimal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
laboratory in grimy downtown Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
is broken into by a group of vegan animal rights activists calling themselves the "urban guerillas". They first release some rabbits, which refuse to leave. They then set the rats free, then cats, which to the horror of the activists, eat the rats. They then release a 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 highly-strung anxiety-stricken woman, keeps the dog and names the dog "Karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
".
Meanwhile, three inept 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 American friend Roy Arnie arrives and offers them a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity with Circus Stromowski, a travelling Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
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 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
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
who is paranoid of police and with an ear ring 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 is hooked on the drugs, a junkie. 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 circus.
Roy Arnie admits to the others that he has stolen over a million pounds worth of heroin which he stole from a tanker belonging to the Russian Mafia
Russian Mafia
The Russian Mafia is a name applied to organized crime syndicates in Russia and Ukraine. The mafia in various countries take the name of the country, as for example the Ukrainian mafia....
, and that he decided on the circus to escape them. The four lads hatch a plan to smuggle the heroin out of Norway by putting all the heroin 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 potentially made from the heroin, the "Roy Arnie Circus", and believes Jimmy to be the key to his dream. However on the night the lads plan to steal the elephant, Jimmy escapes when he is accidentally given speed instead of heroin, and he bolts out of a door left open by the animal rights activists. Jimmy's drug-induced escape causes widespead chaos. Flea comically steals a van with no windshield in the ensuing chase of Jimmy, which leads them up into the frozen moorland
Moorland
Moorland or moor is a type of habitat, in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, found in upland areas, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils and heavy fog...
.
Three bizarrely-dressed bikers
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
who have been tailing the lads the whole time turn out to be three members of the highly feared "Laplander
Sami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
" who have been hired by the Russians and are looking for the heroin, and revenge on Roy Arnie. After overhearing their conversations 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 hunted by a group of trigger happy, redneck
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
-type big game hunters who want to shoot something bigger than a moose for a change. So begins a mad cap cross country road trip
Road trip
A road trip is any journey taken on roads, regardless of stops en route. Typically, road trips are long distances traveled by automobile.-Pre-automobile road trips:...
to find Jimmy, with different groups with different motives. The four stoners crash a log cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...
which is occupied by an elderly American couple, but the three Lappish Mafia bikers find them there, kill the couple and torture the four stoners for information on the whereabouts of Jimmy the elephant.
Jimmy nearly dies on the moors as he begins to go through cold turkey
Cold turkey
"Cold turkey" describes the actions of a person who abruptly gives up a habit or addiction rather than gradually easing the process through gradual reduction or by using replacement medication....
, although a seemingly intelligent and benevolent moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
with gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
en 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. As the elephant and the moose escape into the sunset, Jimmy 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 within minutes (probably of drug overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
). This causes Sonia to recoil in horror in what she has done, and then she and her friend scream and run off. The moose causes a landslide which buries Jimmy's body, and after the moose sits poignantly by the mound of rocks which now entomb Jimmy, it gallops off into the sunset alone. The only other survivors of the massacre, the four stoners, do not witness these events and believing Jimmy still alive they continue to look for Jimmy on the moors. Eventually, they all beat up Roy Arnie for leading them to the situation in the first place, because of his mad circus dreams, and "for Jimmy", "our mate". At the end of the film, full of remorse over what he has done in the past, Roy Arnie goes out alone into a terrible blizzard
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
on the moors to look for Jimmy, who he does not know is dead.
Overview
The plot of the English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
version of the film remains virtually unchanged to the original in Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
. The audio track is dubbed over
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
with English voices, with contemporary British dialogue written by Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
, 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
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
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
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
instead of Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
in Norway. 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
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
-type hunting party are apparently Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
in the English language version.
Cast
The voice actors of the English language version make up an international ensemble castEnsemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
that include:
| Actor | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Woody Harrelson Woody Harrelson Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd... |
Roy Arnie | Woody Harrleson plays Roy Arnie, an American United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... thief and ruthless wheeler dealer who has toured with the Russian circus and has dreams of starting his own circus. Roy Arnie is the catalyst for the events of the movie which take place in Norway. |
| Simon Pegg Simon Pegg Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film... |
Odd | Simon Pegg wrote the screenplay for the English language version of the film. He voices Odd, one of the main characters of the film, a cockney Cockney The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End... stoner and a down-and-out. |
| Emilia Fox Emilia Fox Emilia Rose Elizabeth Fox is an award-winning English actress, known for her role as Dr. Nikki Alexander on BBC crime drama Silent Witness, having joined the cast in 2004 following the departure of Amanda Burton. She also appears as Morgause in the BBC's Merlin beginning in the programme's second... |
Bettina | Marius' partner |
| Kyle MacLachlan Kyle MacLachlan Kyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors... |
Marius | Leader of the communist, vegan, animal right's activists |
| Samantha Morton Samantha Morton Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as Soldier Soldier and Boon before making her film debut in the 1997 drama film This Is the Sea, playing the character of Hazel Stokes... |
Sonia | A highly-strung and naïve animal rights activist suffering from extreme anxiety Anxiety Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,... and who loves animals. Ironically, in a fit of rage after Jimmy the elephant trod on her dog Karma, Sonia shoots and kills Jimmy, the least likely character in the story to do so. |
| David Tennant David Tennant David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr... |
Hamish | One of the hunting party who is always trying to control HudMaSpec's temper |
| Jim Broadbent Jim Broadbent James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary... |
Stromowskij |
Box office
In its native Norway the film was released in cinemas in 2006, where it was a box office hit making over 200 million Norwegian kroneNorwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...
r in profit. It was critically well-received. However when the English language version was released to the wider world in 2008, it was a direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
release. The English language version has not yet been shown in cinemas.
Awards
- In its native Norway, the film won an AmandaAmanda (award)The Amanda Award is an award given annually at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, Norway, to promote and improve Norwegian film. The award originated in 1985, and has since 2005 been exclusively a film award...
in the category "Best Film" in 2006. - Awarded "Le Cristal du long métrage" at the French Annecy International Animated Film FestivalAnnecy International Animated Film FestivalThe Annecy International Animation Film Festival was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring every two years, the festival became annual in 1998...
2007.
Critical reception
The original version of the film was critically well received in its native Norway, and remains something of a cult hit in the country, although this may be tied to the director's cult status in Norway, where he is renowned for his work in comic books. The film successfully portrayed modern Norwegian ironic humor. The film was noted for its animation, and won numerous international awards for it.However, the later English language version has received mixed reviews, mostly negative. These include a scathing review by Xan Brooks of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
who described it as "joyless" and those who watch it to be "dumb animals themselves". 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 humor had been lost in translation. Free Jimmy currently has a "rotten" rating of only 10% on aggregate ratings site Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Free Jimmy currently has a three star rating out of five on MSN Movies.