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Free Jimmy (2006)

Director: Christopher Nielsen

Time Out rating

Average user rating

17 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

This adult-orientated, computer-generated animation isn’t an especially successful outing but still serves as an impressive antidote to the Disney-Pixar norm. It was written and directed in 2006 by Norway’s Christopher Nielsen, and Simon Pegg has since turned his hand to writing an English screenplay for it while a host of named actors – including Woody Harrelson, Jim Broadbent and Pegg – have added their vocal weight. The result is a gritty Scandinavia-set stoner comedy replete with a raft of unkempt cockney-esque characters, some hit-and-miss comic moments, dank locations, rampant copulation, much spliff-smoking and more effing and blinding than you’ll find on any football terrace. Yet part of the story here is undeniably touching, poignant, even childlike in its depiction of animal exploitation.

Jimmy is an endearing but malnourished Russian circus elephant with ripped earlobes and broken tusks. Not only is he kept in check with a cocktail of uppers and downers, but some Russian smuggler has sewn seven kilos of heroin into his arse. When the film’s main characters – a group of hired dope fiends – screws up his medication, Jimmy dashes off into the wild and the film switches to road-trip mode as he’s pursued by Lappish mafia, Scottish hunters and incompetent animal activists. The film sports an enjoyable ‘Shaft’-inspired soundtrack, some pretty deft animation and a most un-Disneyfied ending. It’s just not as funny as it could have been.

Author: Derek Adams 2008-10-14 12:13:22

Time Out London Issue 1991, Oct 16 – 22, 2008

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User reviews of this film

daisy said...

Posted on Oct 18 2008 00:14 Some of the top UK actors (and the sublime Woody Harrelson and Kyle MacLachlan) provide excellent cameos, the animal rights activists had me giggling as I left the cinema and the music fits perfectly - at times sending up the adventure elements and then pulling on your heart strings in the next instant. A film that you don't see everyday, which refreshed my attitude to cinema.

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Gary said...

Posted on Oct 17 2008 15:47 This is a slap in the face to all rosy happy endings. This is art in its extreme, a wake up call by talented animators spiting in the face of what is supposed to be 'norm' and shaking its audience to assess the consequences of drug abuse as well as questioning the incessant need of a covered-up representation of our world. This is very timely, the opiate clowds have given way to reality and risen a call back to nature. Free Jimmy is about freeing all those chained-up in a way of life we have unquestioned for too long.

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