THE SHEEP DETECTIVES Review

Talking sheep investigating the murder of a human character is certainly an interesting concept for a movie. One that many people, including myself, heard the concept of, or even saw the overly cheesy trailer and thought was going to be a downright silly if not flat out bad movie. So when the movie debuted in the 90s on Rotten Tomatoes, intrigue went up, and rightfully so.

George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads mystery novels to his sheep every night, not knowing they actually understand them. When George is found dead in a suspicious manner, and it seems the towns only police officer Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) isn't apt to solve the case, Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), one of the sheep, decides they need to be the ones to solve it.

The true stars here are the sheep themselves and the stacked voice cast behind them. Alongside Louis-Dreyfus' excellent voice performance, Bryan Cranston and Chris O'Dowd are standouts, and everyone else in the voice cast brings their characters to life no matter how big or small their roles are. Newcomer Tommy Birchall is also excellent voicing the The Winter Lamb. Despite the big names in the voice cast, this isn't one of those movies where you just hear recognizable voices for the sake of hearing recognizable voices, with nothing else going for them to truly flesh the characters personalities out. They're all actually great voice acting performances with a lot of care put into the characterization.

The mystery at the core of The Sheep Detectives is also surprisingly good, often being steps ahead of the audience. We might know that something is a red herring, as a mystery movie is never as simple as the first suspect is the correct suspect, but at least I didn't know where it was going until the very end. I was always actively trying to participate in figuring out what was happening, which is all one can ask for in a murder mystery.

The themes in the movie are also very prominent and well explored. The movie introduces the concept of the winter sheep, sheep who are born in winter being ostracized from their flock, made to believe they don't belong. This theme is explored not just through the sheep themselves, but it's applied to the humans as well. This allows the film to explore ideas of how easily we judge people for things outside their control, or the sad reasons we decide to exclude people.

It also introduces the concept of the sheep being able to willingly forget things. All they have to do is concentrate and count to three, and almost all of them forget what they're trying to forget. The key word is almost all, because this strategy simply doesn't work Chris O'Dowd's sheep, Mopple. Because of this, Mopple has to carry a lot of things on his shoulders, knowing he's the only one who remembers. He's the only sheep that remembers that death is a real thing, and that sheep don't simply "turn into clouds" when they go away as the other sheep choose to believe. The question arises, however, whether choosing to forget difficult moments or aspects of life is truly the best way to move past them. This is what allows for the most character growth through the movie.

The movie's biggest downfall is in the human characters. They are simply far less interesting to follow than the sheep as a whole. Part of the issue comes from there not being a clear vision on what tone the movie is going for with them. Characters like Jackman's George, Braun's Officer Derry, and Molly Gordon's Rebecca Hampstead (George's daughter), feel much more natural and humanized. Meanwhile characters like Emma Thompson's Lydia Harbottle (George's lawyer), Hong Chau's Beth Pennock (the town innkeeper), and Nicholas Galitzine Elliott Matthews (a reporter that is visiting town when this all goes down) feel more like the over the top, cartoony characters you expect in a movie marketed towards kids. These groups feel like they're in different movies with, ironically enough, the former group feeling more in line with the sheep and their more authentic characterization. Neither group necessarily give the most memorable performances, letting the voice cast outshine them in a way that feels strange.

Still, when we're focused on the sheep, what works really works far better than I ever anticipated. The themes are very resonant, the mystery is fun, and I remained entertained from beginning to end.

🍿SCORE = 85 / 100