“Dearest Rebecca, I know you have many questions. So do I. After all, life is a mystery. But if there’s one answer to all of the riddles of the universe, one secret to happiness, I promise it would be simply this … sheep. No, seriously, it really is sheep.”
It really is. The Sheep Detectives is exactly what it sounds like. No. it’s not detectives investigating sheep. OK, so it might not be exactly what it sounds like. It’s the sheep that are doing the investigating here, so move over, Monk. Move over, Sherlock Holmes. Move over, Columbo. This one is going to be solved by the sheep. No, seriously. It’s going to be solved by the sheep. It all started with a German book for the kids called Three Bags Full written by Leonie Swann in 2005. The screenplay is by Craig Mazin, and it was directed by Kyle Balda and is his first live-action film after directing popular animated titles like a few Minions films as well as being co-director of The Lorax. So now he’s taking a stab at live action … but that’s not completely true. Yes, I’m talking about the … sheep, which are all CGI. It’s now out on Blu-ray from MGM/Amazon studios, and it’s going to be a rare (these days) real family treat.
“If there’s one secret to happiness in my life, it’s taking care of the kindest creatures on earth: sheep! I want you to meet my flock. I keep them well fed, well groomed, and each day I read out loud to them: mysteries, whodunits. I like to pretend that they follow along, but they’re only sheep.”
Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman plays George Hardy. He lives in a mobile home in a large field where he is a shepherd to a flock of sheep. He’s quite dedicated to the woolly animals and spoils them. He has names for each of them to go along with their personality traits. There’s Ronnie & Reggie, both voiced by Brett Goldstein. They spend most of their time literally bumping heads with each other. Sir Richfield is voiced by Patrick Stewart, who worked often with Jackman on the X-Men and Wolverine films. Sir Richfield is the elder, wise and dignified in the group. Cloud (Hall) is the fluffiest. Zora (Bella Ramsey) is the curious one. Mopple (O’Dowd) is the most patient. Sebastian (Cranston), the loner who watches from atop a rock, and Lily (Louis-Dreyfus) are his two favorites. There’s also a runt later named George (Birchhall). He’s a winter lamb, which means he’s snubbed by the other sheep. It’s kind of a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer situation. George isn’t allowed to join in any sheep games.
Each night before bed George reads to the flock from a mystery novel. He doesn’t believe they understand, but we soon discover that they have been paying attention and even try to work out the killers before George reveals them. It all comes in pretty handy training when George is discovered dead one day. The sheep, with Lily in charge, think they understand the genre enough to solve his murder.
So now come the humans in the town.
There’s the town’s only police officer Tim (Braun). He’s not the sharpest tool in the kit, but he’s never really had this kind of trouble before. The suspect list includes butcher Ham Gilyard (Hill), who never liked George because he wouldn’t allow his flock to be used for food and was a vegetarian. Elliott Matthews (Galitzine) claims to be there to cover the town’s cultural festival, which is just three tables of “stuff” in local historian and artist Beth Pennock (Chau)’s back yard. But he sticks around to cover the big crime. Lydia Harbotte (Thompson) arrives in town for the reading of the will. Maybe she’s just a little too prim and proper. Rival Shepherd Caleb (Cole) would love to join the flocks under his command. There’s Reverend Hillcoate (Holdbrook-Smith), who has some unspoken history with George. And there’s his daughter, Rebecca, played by Molly Gordon, who looks like the best suspect in the bunch. The evidence is enough to land her in the local jail, but with a little help from the … sheep, the true killer just might be revealed.
The film is loaded with charm that starts out from the beginning with Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of George. This is the gentle side of Jackman that stands in sharp contrast to the abrasive side we know and love from Wolverine. The truth is the guy’s got chops, and while he dies pretty early in the film, it’s safe to say his early presence sets the tone of the entire film. George is gone, but his spirit remains. The other performances are all good, but I can’t say enough times that Jackson brings us well into this world long before he leaves it.
These sensibilities shouldn’t be a surprise. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are the producers, and they’re the guys behind the animated Spider-Verse films and the recent hit Project Hail Mary. These guys know how to bring out the emotional beats in a film. Trust me on that.
The computer animation is flawless and blends into the “real” world without distraction. You will be amazed at how quickly you accept the talking sheep. I get it. CGI has come a long way, but these creations manage to have a little extra heart, and you’ll start to have favorites, and you’ll come to love them as much as George loved them because … well … they’re sheep. The film is kid-friendly. Yeah, there’s a murder and quite a few allusions to exactly where meat comes from, but they aren’t abruptly gory or disturbing. It’s rare for a film to hit on so many levels as this one does. It’s a bedtime story that truly feels like the ones we heard from our own parents as children. There’s plenty of slapstick, and sometimes the jokes don’t land, but when they do they stick the landing. This is one you can put in your collection and mark “for the family”, and I’ve seen so many movies I know the difference. “I see everything.”
