TL;DR – Who knew if you smashed Knives Out into Chicken Run, you would create something so profoundly charming.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit audio sting, but you don’t need to stay for it.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

The Sheep Detectives Review Introduction

It has been a long time since a film charmed me to the core. However, that is just what happened today. Look, if you told me at the start of the year that a Hugh Jackman sheep film would be scoring high on my end-of-the-year list, I would have called you foolish. But the only fool would have been past-me, and present-me is already quite annoyed at past-me, so we can just add this to the list.  

So, to set the scene, in the charming little English town of Denbrook, lives a farmer called George (Hugh Jackman) and his flock of sheep. George loves all his sheep equally and gave them all names, because they are all special. But he also feels that Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Sebastian (Bryan Cranston) are the most special. Everything was going swimmingly at the farm, bar all these weird grudges that seemed to have come out of nowhere. However, one night, after reading the sheep their nighttime story, Lily woke to find George lying in the field dead … murdered. Was it the besmirched innkeeper Beth Pennock (Hong Chau), the failed shepherd Caleb (Tosin Cole), the duplicitous priest Reverend Hillcoate (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), the grumpy butcher Ham Gilyard (Conleth Hill), or the mysterious Rebecca Hampstead (Molly Gordon)? Whatever the case, the sheep can’t leave the case to local police officer Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), because he is plainly useless. No, if someone is going to step up and solve this murder, it is going to be someone with four hooves, copious wool, and a penchant for baaing.   

The Detectives

Now, I am sure on set there were some puppets or placeholders, and maybe even some real sheep here and there. But in the final production, nearly all the sheep were digital creations, and not just the faces, the whole creatures. When I first realised this, I had some concern, because in recent times, such as The Lion King, when films have gone down this route, it tends to look bad. Anthropomorphising and perfect renders are not often friendly neighbours. But here they have made it work. Partly because each of the sheep is clearly a different breed, and they went to the effort of making those details work. But more than that, it is getting the balance right between what the humans see and what we see when the sheep are talking. It is also taking the right stylistic choices so you don’t feel like you are watching a sheep from the uncanny valley. It is clear that a lot of technical work went into pulling this off, and the artists should be congratulated.

The Mystery

At the heart of this film is a murder mystery, and they are quite upfront about it, which is an odd choice for a film that is pitched at a younger audience. However, they do make it work, because you can feel the love of the genre pouring through every scene. Part of the narrative is a deconstruction of the genre, much the same way that Wake Up Dead Man interrogated the locked-room mystery. This works on one level as an introduction to the genre for an audience who might not have experienced it much before. But then it also works as a commentary on the genre as a whole, for those audiences that are more familiar with the inner workings. You will work out who the murderer is if you pay even a modicum of attention, but that’s not a dealbreaker when the rest of the film is charming to a tee.

The Charm

On that front, you can feel that everyone in the film is bringing their A-game to the proceedings because you can feel the charm oozing out of every pore. It was absolutely the right choice to create the foundation of this film around Hugh Jackman, as he does give the energy of someone who would read to his sheep, and you need that level of care to make the rest of the film work. There are also these wonderful interplays between the different characters throughout. Emma Thompson arrived and is an instant scene stealer, and I mean that both literally and metaphorically. Nicholas Braun and Nicholas Galitzine’s characters finding this weird bro relationship on the field of murder was an odd delight. There were jokes ranging from the worst puns you have seen to more cerebral moments that had the audience in stitches. I mean, how can you not find joy in a sheep trying to eat that one carrot that is just out of reach? Also, every time they cut to the humans, and it is just the sheep baaing, well, it is just joyfully comedic.

The Emotion

One thing I was not expecting was how emotional parts of the film got. The sheep end up having real skin in the game when it comes to solving the murder, and you can feel that weight in the story. The movie also adds all these interesting little narrative titbits to ruminate upon. I am fascinated by the choice to let the sheep be able to forget bad things on command, and you better believe that plays into the story in curious places. It has moments that heavily critique religion, and other moments that seemingly reinforce it. There is also this, to be fair, quite heavy-handed plotline about the discrimination that winter lambs get for being born in winter, which must be an English thing.

The Pause

Suppose I were to step away from my enjoyment of the film and dive into the criticism a touch. I will say that while I think all the voice work is fine, Julia Louis-Dreyfus does get lost in the mix at times, because everyone else is giving a bit more impact to their performances. Also, for a profoundly English presentation [based on a German novel], the end result was surprisingly more American than you would expect. And, if I wanted to be really nitpicky, the ending clue reveal was maybe just a touch too contrived for where the rest of the film sits. None of these take away from the end product, but they were enough to have me take pause for a moment.                    

The Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend The Sheep Detectives? Yes, yes, we do. I mean, they changed the opening MGM lion to make sheep sounds, and that is just silly enough to work and also set the vibes for the rest of the outing. Now I will slightly modify this with a warning that if you have quite little ones, there is one scene in particular that is quite scary, but you will be able to see it coming, and it is the only one in the film.

Have you watched The Sheep Detectives? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked The Sheep Detectives, we would recommend Paddington 2 to you because it brings the same level of charm and joyfulness to the proceedings.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Sheep Detectives
Directed by – Kyle Balda
Screenplay by – Craig Mazin
Based on – Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
Music by – Christophe Beck
Cinematography by – George Steel
Edited by – Martin Walsh, Paul Machliss, & Al LeVine
Production/Distribution Companies – Working Title Films, Three Strange Angels, Lord Miller Productions, Amazon MGM Studios, & Sony Pictures
Starring – Hugh Jackman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Rhys Darby, Brett Goldstein, Hong Chau, Emma Thompson, Tosin Cole, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Conleth Hill, & Mandeep Dhillon   
Rating – Australia: PG; Canada: PG; Germany: na; New Zealand: PG; United Kingdom: PG; United States: PG