Free Jimmy
Free Jimmy | |
---|---|
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International (Norway)Breakthru Films (United Kingdom) | |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 86 minutes |
Countries | Norway[1] United Kingdom[1] |
Languages | English Norwegian |
Free Jimmy (
It was Norway's first computer animated film. Costing in excess of 120 million
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 generally negative in the English-speaking world.
Plot
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (March 2022) |
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
Meanwhile, three inept
Roy admits to the others that he has stolen seven kilograms of heroin worth over a million pounds from a tanker owned by the
Three Lappish Mafia
In the moors, Jimmy is close to death and suffering withdrawal when a benevolent moose befriends him and helps him by leading him to water, bringing him food, and providing shelter. The moose supports Jimmy to stand up on his own. Over the course of a few painful days with the moose's help, Jimmy recovers in nature away from exploiting humans.
When the groups find Jimmy, chaos ensues resulting in many of the people dying mostly violent, bloody deaths. The moose distracts the hunters who accidentally shoot a motorbiker - the other two and activist Marius die when he throws a grenade in the middle of a fall. Roy Arnie tries attract Jimmy with drugs, but he refuses and intimidates them. As Jimmy and the moose try to leave, Jimmy steps on Karma, splatting him. The naive, high-strung, grief-stricken activist Sonia loses her temper and shoots Jimmy in his incision using one of the hunters' rifles, unwittingly bursting the bags of heroin inside that quickly kills Jimmy from the massive drug overdose. Sonia recoils in horror and flees amidst her nervous breakdown with the other only surviving activist.
The stoners attempt to retrieve the heroin from Jimmy's corpse. The moose pushes some rocks which cause a landslide that buries Jimmy's body so his corpse can't be exploited. The stoners leave. At the mound entombing Jimmy, the moose poignantly mourns then gallops away into the sunset alone. Back at their apartment home, the three stoners assault Roy Arnie for leading them to the situation because of his circus dreams. Finally, Roy, full of remorse over his past actions, ventures to the moors alone to search for Jimmy. 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
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:
Actor | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|
Woody Harrelson | Roy Arnie | An American wheeler dealer who has toured with the Russian circus and has dreams of starting his own circus. He is the catalyst for the events of the film which take place in Norway.
|
Simon Pegg | Odd | A cockney stoner and a down-and-out. Pegg also wrote the screenplay for the English-language version of the film. |
Phil Daniels | Gaz | Odd's flatmate and also a habitual criminal. |
Jay Simpson | Flea | The third of the stoner trio. |
Jim Broadbent | Igor Stromowskij | Ringmaster of a deranged and even dangerous travelling Russian circus |
James Cosmo | HudMaSpecs | Leader of the Scottish big game hunters. His nickname is due to his short temper, which when lost he says this and gives over his beloved specs to a subordinate to stop them being broken in a fight. |
David Tennant | Hamish | One of the hunting party who is always trying to control HudMaSpec's temper |
Kyle MacLachlan | Marius | Leader of the communist, vegan, animal right's activists |
Emilia Fox | Bettina | Marius' partner |
Samantha Morton | Sonia | A highly-strung and naïve animal rights activist suffering from extreme 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.
|
Douglas Henshall | Eddie | |
Steve Pemberton | Mattis | |
Reece Shearsmith | Ante | |
Mark Gatiss | Jakki | |
Megan Dodds | Claire | |
Kris Marshall | Erik | |
Lisa Maxwell | Lise |
Themes
Free Jimmy explores a wide number of themes including
Release
Film festival premieres
- Cannes, France– May 25, 2006
- Helsinki, Finland– September 15, 2006
- 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
- 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
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
Accolades
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2006 | Amanda Award | Best Film (Årets norske kinofilm) | Lars Andreas Hellebust | Won |
2006 | Nordic Council's Film Prize | Christopher Nielsen (director and writer) Simon Pegg (writer) Häkon Gundersen (producer) Lars Andreas Hellebust (producer) |
Nominated | |
2007 | Cristal Award | Best Feature | Christopher Nielsen | Won |
2007 | Kanonprisen |
Best Music | Simon Boswell | Won |
2007 | Kanonprisen |
People’s Choice Award | Free Jimmy | Won |
References
- ^ a b "Things don't add up in Free Jimmy". Evening Standard.
- ^ "Free Jimmy". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
- ^ "Free Jimmy". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ "Film review: Free Jimmy". The Guardian. 16 October 2008. Archived from the original on 14 March 2023.
- ^ "Free Jimmy".