Hugh Jackman and a load of talking sheep star in a murder mystery which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here’s our The Sheep Detectives review. The Sheep Detectives is the adaptation of a German book, set in an Irish town, by an American screenwriter and director and with an Australian at the ... The Sheep Detectives review | And then there wool none
Hugh Jackman and a load of talking sheep star in a murder mystery which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here’s our The Sheep Detectives review.
The Sheep Detectives is the adaptation of a German book, set in an Irish town, by an American screenwriter and director and with an Australian at the top of the call sheet. The human with the most screentime by far is Nicholas Braun (American), playing copper Tim Derry (British) with an accent that splits the difference. Suspects include Conleth Hill (Irish) and Hong Chau (American). The able voice cast of our ovine heroes hop between the Atlantic (Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and the Pacific (Rhys Darby).
And yet, the fictional village of Denbrook is clearly but a stone’s throw from Midsomer – a non-specifically Home Counties idyl of quaint gastro pubs and disappointing cultural festivals. It’s so postcard-perfectly British that it makes The Thursday Murder Club look like Happy Valley.
Much like Cocaine Bear, it doesn’t take much imagination to piece the plot together from the title. A shepherd (Hugh Jackman) is found dead. A hapless police officer (Braun) reckons the case is open-and-shut. Only his flock, led by an unusually sheepish Julia-Louis Dreyfuss, knows something is afoot. Somebody get Christie on the phone: there’s been a murder.
The casting combines moments of brilliance with a spot of “what the hell were they thinking”. Jackman puts in a solid shift as the good-natured shepherd reading mystery novels to his sheep (doing all the voices, obviously). Emma Thompson struts her stuff marvellously as a lawyer the colour and temperament of a poisonous frog.
But Braun and Chau, perhaps struggling under the weight of some slightly ropey British accents, clearly lack the same confidence. Red, White And Royal Blue’s Nicholas Galitzine delivers his lines at a pace and volume which almost distracts from his weirdly Dahmer-esque wig. The whiplash between people experienced in making exactly this kind of comedy work, and people who clearly aren’t, makes The Sheep Detectives a difficult film to relax into while the human characters are on screen. For the cosiest of cosy crime premises ever committed to celluloid, this poses a bit of a problem.
Luckily, the film’s ovine cast know exactly what film they’re in. Brett Goldstein is a clear standout as a pair of chaotically (if not maliciously) violent rams, but everyone, from Bryan Cranston’s (literal and metaphorical) black sheep to Bella Ramsay’s adorably enthusiastic lamb, approaches the film’s combo of murder and comedy with gusto. Director Kyle Balda and the visual effects department have done a decent job escaping uncanny valley to animate a bunch of talking animals, too (assuming they couldn’t just find a ram that sounds exactly like Walter White).
Screenwriter Craig Mazin, for whom the film must be some kind of mandated post-Chernobyl/The Last Of Us therapy project, delivers flashes of brilliance amongst the gentle feel-goodery. Bemused sheep baffled by concepts from death to private property; the mystery element holds together well; and underneath it all a surprisingly pertinent message about the importance of remembrance – even of the things we’d rather forget.
Between these flashes, the joke rate is gentle, and the human world doesn’t feel quite so fleshed out as the animal one. (If you’re the sort of person who leaves the children’s murder mystery complaining that, actually, the Church of England has no functional process of defrocking its ministers, then it might be one to avoid).
But it’s rare to find a live-action family film with this much heart, and with such obvious appeal. The Sheep Detectives offers a couple of hours of talking sheep solving crime, occasionally with buckets on their heads. If that doesn’t sound worth your time, then not even two-dozen A-list ovines will save you.
