The Sheep Detectives movie review: You can’t pull the wool over these sheep’s eyes, that’s for sure. This adaptation of the bestseller novel Three Bags Full by author Leonie Swann, about a flock of them solving the murder of their shepherd, may sound meh. And cutesy talking animals are often a blah.
However, it is surprising how meaty this story, set in a quaint English village called Denbrook, turns out to be in director Kyle Balda and scriptwriter Craig Mazin’s hands, with all the charms and notes of an Agastha Christie mystery. Balda, incidentally, has Minions and Despicable Me 3 in his portfolio, while Mazin – surprise, surprise – was a writer on Chernobyl and The Last of Us. Follow the clues… as the best detective novels advise.
And the sheep do the same. They have a picture perfect (literally) life as the flock of shepherd George (Jackman), who has given all of them names and keeps them well-fed and looked after with a medical concoction he has himself devised. Every evening, George gathers his sheep around and tells them a night-time story, mostly a murder mystery. The moment he has his back turned, the sheep are discussing the tale and who could be the killer among themselves, making it clear that they understand the humans perfectly.
One morning, after a stormy night, George is found dead. The bumbling local cop, Tim (a delightful Braun, whom you may know as Cousin Greg from Succession), is the most rattled at the possibility of having a bloody mystery to solve, in the sleepy Denbrook where even local tourists don’t stumble by.
However, still waters run deep, and nowhere do they run deeper than in villages that are arranged around one church, one inn, one cop, one butcher, and so on. Denbrook’s staples are inn owner Beth (a disappointingly underutilised Chou), Reverend Hillcoate, Tim, butcher Ham and another shepherd whom George’s sheep like but not George too much, Caleb. Enter into the mix George’s long-lost daughter Rebecca (Gordon), George’s city-slicker lawyer Lydia Harbottle (Thompson), and a failed, nosy journalist Elliot (Galitzine).
The sheep are there, listening and peeping in, as Harbottle reads the will, unknown millions of dollars are discovered, and a “motive” is quickly established. Lily (Louis-Dreyfus), one of George’s favourites and the cleverest in the flock by far, leads the “investigation”, ably supported by the solemn Mopple (O’Dowd), and occasionally the street-savvy loner Sebastian (Cranston). They must lead the sheep through doubts and several wrong turns, with Hall as the sheep Cloud, among others, perfectly delightful. Cloud’s astonishment at the shape of a bracelet, “The Thing With No End!”, is a joy to watch.
But, The Sheep Detectives is not going for delight alone, though there is that. It handles some particularly heavy topics, including courage, death, the choice to forget vs the power to remember, and rejection of the “other.” Like Lily, Sebastian (who has a particularly heroic arc) and the gang, Tim’s transformation is equally warm and unforced, even if the sheep have to nudge him towards a mystery novel to get his detective juices flowing.
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The Sheep Detectives is slow getting off the ground, and some of its lines are not either funny or engaging when George is having his heart-to-hearts, setting the stage for his demise.
Don’t count sheep yet, though. Wait for Braun, with his English accent, tapping into the non-plussed quality he brought to Greg’s role in Succession to entirely opposite effect here. His long, gesticulating fingers alone are an expression, encompassing his incredulity as to why the same three sheep are always turning up around him.
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And then there is Dame Emma Thompson. Has she ever turned her acerbic tongue and sharp eyes onto someone and not drawn blood? She swishes in on her expensive car into Denbrook, and immediately lifts The Sheep Detectives to another level.
Once the sheep have done their shepherding, that is.
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The Sheep Detectives movie director: Kyle Balda
The Sheep Detectives movie cast: Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Molly Gordon, Emma Thompson, Hong Chau, Voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patrick Stewart, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall, Chris O’Dowd, Nicholas Galitzine
The Sheep Detectives movie rating: 3.5 stars
