If you’re a fan of murder mystery stories, then you’ve been having the time of your life for the past year, from the latest Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, from Rian Johnson to Netflix’s take on Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials and The Thursday Murder Club. The whodunnit genre seems to be finding itself a resurgence, and now the whole family can join in as they try to solve the mystery alongside a flock of sheep when they try to discover who killed their shepherd, George Hardy (Hugh Jackman).
Kyle Balda, who’s famously known for directing Minions, has stepped away to tackle The Sheep Detectives, and he manages to carry over the whimsical energy that the Minions films bring to this murder mystery. While it’s a movie that’s aimed at a younger audience, it surprisingly tackles some themes that were not expected and, for the most part, are where the film excels.
We meet George, who’s writing a letter to a mysterious lady that goes into introducing us to his life, all his sheep and their names, and why he loves doing this. After we meet the people in his life who either he doesn’t like or they don’t like, we run into the main scenario of the movie: George Hardy’s death.
George usually read murder mystery stories to his flock every night with Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a Shetland shep who is regarded as the smartest amongst the rest of the flock, as she would always solve the mystery before George had finished reading the book. When they discover that he’s died, instead of forgetting him, they decide to jump on the case themselves and figure out who killed their beloved shepherd.
We quickly discover that the mysterious lady that George was writing to was his daughter, Rebecca Hampstead, who mysteriously arrives at Denbrook at the time of her father’s murder and instantly becomes the number one suspect. It’s unfortunate because a lot of the live-action roles in The Sheep Detectives don’t stand out too much from one another.
The Sheep Detectives is adapted from a German novel called Three Bags Full but is the most loose adaptation of that story, as it’s watered down for a younger audience. While that’s the case, this movie does a genuinely fantastic job at handling some of its themes. The murder mystery aspect of the film quickly becomes forgettable and almost feels like Craig Mazin didn’t want to write a murder mystery. When it comes to the suspects and how they pin down who the real killer is, it all becomes a little generic, on the nose and an afterthought for the film.
It’s clear that there was a struggle in having this film feel whimsical while also keeping darker elements of the story, and when they do focus on those darker elements, The Sheep Detectives is a lot stronger as a film. It tackles discrimination amongst the flock of sheep as we witness how they treat winter lambs who are evidently born in the winter. How the movie deals with this gets quite emotional when it’s discovered that one of the sheep among them wasn’t only just born in the winter but also came from a life of pain.
Alongside the discrimination that the movie tackles, it does a great job of dealing with grief and death with the flock. Once having believed that death was not real until they witnessed the death of their shepherd, they then believed that sheep can’t die and that they turn into clouds. It’s an emotional turning point of the movie when they learn that sheep can indeed die and that turning into clouds was a false story being told to them.
It’s the darkest point of the movie, as the sheep learn the harsh reality of what life consists of for them, and the sheep’s use of getting rid of their memories becomes a fantastic plot device that works in conjunction with how they handle grief, which is not handling it at all.
The Sheep Detectives is a hilarious film that will have you laughing at the antics of the flock but most importantly at Denbrook’s only police officer, Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun). He’s a clumsy, incompetent officer that you know is eventually going to solve the case by the end of the film, but his stupidity carries the humour of The Sheep Detectives despite it becoming overused as you reach the anticlimactic third act, which provides the lacklustre killer reveal.
The movie bounces around with the possibilities of all the villagers it could be and makes it clear as day that it’s never the one they want you to think it is, and that’s what ends up making the killer reveal feel like a failure as the character just magically stops appearing after the second act.
The Sheep Detectives has a major issue with its tonal shift. One second, it wants to be this whimsical, hilarious, cozy movie and the next second, it’s this darker movie that tackles grief and discrimination. It does both of those well when it focuses on it but ultimately fails to keep the murder mystery aspect captivating throughout. The voice cast that consists of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldsetin, and Rhys Darby all do an incredible job and bring so much heart and humour into their roles, making this movie not only watchable but also entertaining despite its flaws.
