Main Cast: Woody Harrelson, Jan Saelid, Anders T. Andersen, Simon Pegg, Egil Birkeland, Phil Daniels, Terje Rangnes, Jay Simpson, Kyle MacLachlan, Kristopher Schau
Release Year: 2006
Country: UK/NO
Run Time: 86 minutes
Plot
A drug-addled elephant is on the run from people who either want to help him or kill him in this dark computer-animated comedy that is decidedly not for children. Jimmy is a performing elephant who travels with a third-rate Russian circus run by ringmaster Stromowski (voice of Jim Broadbent). Jimmy's minder is a sleazy American expatriate, Roy Arnie (voice of Woody Harrelson), who keeps the nervous beast pacified with regular doses of heroin. Roy has also hidden a large stash of the drug under Jimmy's skin, but Roy's decided he wants out of circus life and plans to sell the dope and go his own way. However, in order to do that he has to put Jimmy out of his misery, and he recruits three stoner buddies -- Odd (voice of Simon Pegg), Gaz (voice of Phil Daniels) and Flea (voice of Jim Simpson) -- to help whack the elephant. However, it seems Roy is also in debt to some gangsters (voices of Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton) who happen to know that he's hidden the drugs in the elephant, and they're aiming to grab Jimmy before Roy and his pals can. As it happens, they're both beaten to the punch by a group of dim-witted animal rights activists led by Marius (voice of Kyle MacLachlan), who liberate Jimmy and the other circus animals, not realizing they've just sent a junkie pachyderm into the wilds as it's going cold turkey, with only a friendly moose for help. Free Jimmy also features the voice talents of Samantha Morton, Emilla Fox and Lisa Maxwell. Though it was produced in Norway, two versions exist, one with a mostly English-cast (referenced above) and one with a mostly Norwegian cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Kristopher Schau - Marius (Norwegian language version)
Emilia Fox - Bettina (English language version); Tinken Laurantzon - Bettina (Norwegian language version); Lisa Maxwell - Lise (English language version); Janne Ronningen - Lise (Norwegian language version); Samantha Morton - Sonia (English language version); Kristin Skogheim - Sonja (Norwegian language version); Kris Marshall - Erik (English language version); Are Sende Osen - Eirik (Norwegian language version); Jim Broadbent - Stromowskij (English language version); Mikael Holmberg - Stromowskij (Norwegian language version); James Cosmo - HudMaSpecs (English language version); Klaus Joachim Sonstad - Hold Brillan/Tarjei (Norwegian language version); David Tennant - Hamish (English language version); Douglas Henshall - Eddie (English language version); Mikal Gaup - Mattis/Ante/Jakki (Norwegian language version); Reece Shearsmith - Ante (English language version); Mark Gatiss - Jacki (English language version); Steve Pemberton - Mattis (English language version); Megan Dodds - Claire (English and Norwegian language versions)
Credit
Lars Tommerbakke - Associate Producer, Hugh Welchman - Associate Producer, Kristin Hellebust - Associate Producer, Christopher Nielsen - Director, Alistair Reid - Editor, Bill Godfrey - Executive Producer, John Mills - Line Producer, Simon Boswell - Composer (Music Score), Simon Boswell - Musical Direction/Supervision, Tinken Laurantzon - Production Manager, Tom Joelsen - Production Manager, Hakon Gundersen - Producer, Andy Frain - Producer, Lars Andreas Hellebust - Producer, Jeremy Price - Sound/Sound Designer, Simon Pegg - Screenwriter, Christopher Nielsen - Screenwriter, Jon Duncan - Production Accountant, Elisabeth Olsen - Production Accountant, Tracy Malone - Production Accountant, Ivar Rodningen - Character Design
The voice actors for the Norwegian version included Kristopher Schau, Jan Sælid, Are&Odin, Egil Birkeland, Terje Ragner, Anders T. Andersen and Mikkel Gaup.
A significant part of the film was produced in London at Slave Studios, the CGI company owned by animation producer Andy Frain.
Roy Arnie has a dream of one day running his own circus. He and his friends, Odd, Gaz and Flea are uprooted from their mean city streets to work with Ringmaster Stromowski in a touring Russian circus in terminal decline. The star attraction is Jimmy, an elephant kept happy on a cocktail of drugs. But Roy Arnie has a dream that one day he will run his own circus and he tells the boys that the key to his dream is Jimmy. On the opening night a bungled attempt to give Jimmy his drugs causes widespread panic. Jimmy escapes and so begins a mad cap cross country road-trip to find Jimmy before he goes cold turkey.
Suddenly everyone wants a piece of Jimmy. A deranged bunch of animal activists led by clean living and who usually kill more animals by accident than save, straight edged couple Marius and Bettina are after Jimmy to front their cause. A trigger happy hunting party think his head would look great mounted on their wall and the Sami Mafia want to kill him for a big payoff. Jimmy’s only chance is a benevolent moose who befriends him on the road.
Awards
Won an Amanda in the category "Best Film" in 2006.
