The Sheep Detectives: has crime ever been this cosy?

In Hollywood, certain rules govern a murder investigation. One is that everybody who is present at the reading of the will is a suspect. Another is that the unexpected arrival of a stranger should immediately sound alarm bells with whoever is attempting to unravel the case. Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), an avid consumer of crime fiction, knows all this. So when someone near and dear to her dies in murky circumstances, Lily is more than ready to snap into action and bring the murderer to justice. 

Unfortunately, Lily is a sheep. And while she is undoubtedly the smartest in her flock, and possibly the world, there’s a limit to what she can practically achieve when it comes to nailing the killer of her beloved shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman).

Thus, the scene is set for the amiably eccentric family picture The Sheep Detectives, the first live-action movie from the former animation director Kyle Balda (The Lorax, Minions, Despicable Me 3). The evident aim with this animal-led crime adventure is to mash up two successful formulae in the hope of manufacturing movie magic: think Babe meets Knives Out, garnished with the cheerful, colour-popping, aggressively whimsical production design of the Paddington pictures. 

It’s an intriguing premise, even if the volume of death and abattoir-based peril risks tipping the film into Babe: Pig in the City territory (a notorious, child-traumatising flop of a sequel). And while it is not quite in the same league as any of the films that clearly influenced it, The Sheep Detectives is an appealingly offbeat children’s film, showcasing Balda’s knack for visual humour while also sheep-dipping into unexpectedly weighty themes.

The screenplay is adapted by Craig Mazin (The Last of Us, Chernobyl) from the crime novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. Despite the relatively high character mortality rate, it’s in some ways a cuddlier, cosier version of the source material: in the book, George is a depressive drug dealer who uses his flock as marijuana mules. In both versions of the story, however, George is something of an outcast in his village community while being an attentive shepherd who goes above and beyond the call of duty by reading to his sheep at night. The bedtime stories of choice: pulpy crime fiction.

Lily’s fellow flock members include Mopple (voiced by Chris O’Dowd), the sheep who can never forget (a blessing, a curse and a useful plot device); Sebastian (Bryan Cranston), the loner ram with a dark past; Cloud (Regina Hall), the vainest, fluffiest and most beautiful of all sheep and a pair of adolescent rams called Ronnie and Reggie (Brett Goldstein). In the human cast, we have Elliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine), the junior reporter from the local paper who has stumbled upon the biggest story in years; Lydia Harbottle (Emma Thompson), George’s no-nonsense attorney; and dim-bulb local policeman Officer Tim Derry (Succession’s Nicholas Braun, doing a pretty serviceable West Country accent). Everyone is a suspect of course, but the spotlight falls on Rebecca Hampstead (The Bear’s Molly Gordon), George’s biological daughter who was raised in the US and who stands to inherit his land and flock.

There are plenty of reasons why this movie shouldn’t work. The score is irksomely quirky, punctuating each moment of humour with an exaggerated nudge to the audience. The eclectic approach to voice talent casting means that some of the sheep inexplicably have American accents. And the screenplay is slapdash at times – one key plot point requires a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that hair dye works, which probably won’t bother most people but annoyed me immensely. Meanwhile the inter-sheep prejudice against “winter-born lambs” doesn’t quite land. 

But despite this, The Sheep Detectives trundles along pleasantly, leaning heavily on impressive CGI sheep-rendering technology and on Thompson’s impeccably crisp line delivery and comic timing. It’s certainly one of the better options for family entertainment in cinemas right now. Children will respond to the humour and the committed silliness of the story, and, at the very least, exhausted parents will have an opportunity to count sheep.

Photograph by Amazon MGM Studios