Free Jimmy

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 animal testing laboratory in grimy central Oslo, Norway is broken into by a bumbling group of guerilla vegan animal rights activists called True Warriors Against Animal Torture and Subjugation (TWAATS). They first release some rabbits which refuse to leave. They then set the rats free, then the cats, which to the horror of the activists, eat the rats. Again to their horror, their dog Karma kills the cats. They bury the dead animals, vowing to at some point take revenge on "animal oppressing" society.

Meanwhile, three inept Cockney English stoner habitual criminals named Odd, Gaz and Flea (Odd, Geir and Kælle in the Norwegian version) watch a news story about the lab break-in at a decrepit apartment. Their shady Southern American friend Roy Arnie (a fellow Norwegian childhood friend in the original) arrives and offers them a job opportunity with Circus Stromowski, a travelling Russian circus led by Ringmaster Igor Stromowski. As they are in debt with Roy Arnie, trying to escape a local gangster named Ivan, and believe it is lucrative, they agree. However, upon arriving at the circus, they find Stromowski to be incompetent and deranged, and the entire circus is full of useless, miserable has-beens and tired animals that are forced to perform under the influence of narcotics. They are supposed to work as the animal handlers. The star attraction is "Jimmy", a captive large male elephant who is paranoid of police, missing half his tusk, and addicted to drugs. Roy Arnie gives Jimmy speed so he can perform spiritedly for spectators, and gives him heroin at night to sedate him.

Roy admits to the others that he has stolen seven kilograms of heroin worth over a million pounds from a tanker owned by the Russian Mafias, whom he joined the circus to escape from. The four plan to smuggle the heroin out of Norway by making an incision in Jimmy's buttocks, placing the bags of drugs inside and then sewing it back up. Roy Arnie plans to found his own circus using the money and believes Jimmy to be the key to his dream. However, on the night where they plan to steal the elephant, Jimmy escapes when he is accidentally given speed instead of heroin and bolts out of a door left open by TWAATS. Flea steals a van with no windshield in the ensuing chase of Jimmy which leads them up into the frozen moorland.

Three Lappish Mafia motorbikers dressed in traditional Sámi garb clothes part of the notorious "Laplander motorcycle gang" who have been hired by the Russian Mafias and are looking for the heroin and revenge on Roy Arnie tail the lads. The bikers overhear their conversation and learn the drugs are stored in Jimmy, and decide to pursue him first. Meanwhile, the TWAATS pursue him, intending to make him an animal rights symbol, but two abandon them, tired walking through the moorlands on foot. Jimmy is also hunted by a group of trigger-happy and redneck-type Scottish big game hunters (trøndere in the Norwegian version) who want to shoot a larger animal. The four stoners find a log cabin which is occupied by an elderly Asian-American couple but the three Lappish Mafia motorbikers find them there, kill the couple and torture the four stoners for the information on the whereabouts of Jimmy the elephant.

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.

Free Jimmy explores a wide number of themes including addiction, drug abuse, freedom, nature, tragedy, crime, materialism, urban decay, animal cruelty and animal rights.

• Free Jimmy at IMDb
• Official homepage – English version
• Official homepage – Norwegian version