Free Jimmy

Free Jimmy
Film poster
Directed byChristopher Nielsen
Written byChristopher Nielsen
Produced byHåkon Gundersen
Lars Andreas Hellebust
StarringEnglish Version
Woody Harrelson
Simon Pegg
Phil Daniels
Jay Simpson
Emilia Fox
Samantha Morton
James Cosmo
David Tennant
Jim Broadbent
Kyle MacLachlan
Edited byAlastair Reid
Music bySimon Boswell
Distributed byColumbia 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
CountriesNorway[1]
United Kingdom[1]
LanguagesEnglish
Norwegian

Free Jimmy (No: Slipp Jimmy fri) is a 2006 adult 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 generally negative in the English-speaking world.

  1. ^ a b "Things don't add up in Free Jimmy". Evening Standard.