In the country village of Denbrook, warm-hearted shepherd George Hardy loves his sheep like his own children and reads them crime mysteries every evening. When George (Hugh Jackman) dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances, his beloved flock must push past their natural sheepishness and draw upon the stories he’s told them and the kindnesses he’s shown them to solve the crime.
When reporter Elliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine) comes to highlight Denbrook’s cultural festival, he’s nearly disappointed by the village’s simple offerings, until George’s untimely death gives him something to justify his visit. With encouragement from Matthews, Denbrook’s hapless police chief Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) begins to suspect foul play and launches a bumbling investigation. The suspects include a butcher, a competing shepherd, an Anglican vicar, a nosy shopowner, and a mysterious young woman whose visit coincides with Hardy’s death. Despite Derry’s good intentions, it’s soon clear that if the crime is to be solved, Hardy’s sheep must take matters into their own hooves.
Led by Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), the sheep draw upon their understanding of murder mysteries as imparted to them by George’s nightly readings. Being sheep, they’re under many humorous limitations, such as native cowardice, naivete, and the hilarious tendency/ability to deliberately forget unpleasant details or troubling life experiences. Despite these weaknesses, Hardy’s flock plays an essential role in helping Officer Derry collar the surprising culprit.
Knowing that the film featured talking CGI sheep solving a crime, I came to it expecting mystery story tropes, sheep jokes, and perhaps some vegetarian messaging—and the film certainly has all of the above. What I was not expecting was how rich and moving The Sheep Detectives would be. True, some early scenes had me worrying that the film would take standard, irreverent Hollywood swipes against the religious and/or the ominivorous—in other words, homo sapiens—but a full viewing dispelled these fears, and left my children and me quite touched. There’s even some messaging and symbolism about the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep by name, and an interesting focus on the lamb born in winter who, though rejected by the flock, plays an essential role in the flock’s salvation. These themes are subtle and not explicitly connected to Christ, but they could hardly have been accidental.
My kids and I enjoyed this film immensely, and we found it a cut above most contemporary children’s movies. It’s a true family film of the sort rarely seen nowadays: entertaining and edifying for the kids but with enough layers to engage their parents. We would happily watch The Sheep Detectives again, and I heartily recommend it for families.