On a quiet English farm, a kind-hearted shepherd reads murder mysteries aloud to his flock every night, never imagining they understand a single word. But when he is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the clever sheep realize it’s a real murder — and decide they must solve the case themselves. The Sheep Detectives is a woolly whodunit where the unlikeliest detectives take the lead.

The Sheep Detectives Review

COMING SOON

PARENTAL NOTES

Murder Most Foul

• The entire plot hinges on the murder of Hugh Jackman’s character. While death is certainly a part of life, whether or not you want to introduce your youngest children to the concept of 1st degree homicide will likely be the determining factor in your decision to take them to see this.
  • The murder is never couched in unassuming terms, and is referred to as “murder” repeatedly throughout.
  • Hugh Jackman’s murdered corpse is shown on screen more than once. There’s no outward signs of violence on the body, but do you want your five-year-old seeing it?

Mature Concepts

• Little Orphan Annie has been around for over 100 years, first as a comic strip and then making its way to a feature film in 1932. So, the idea of children without parents is something that the American public doesn’t seem to have much difficulty discussing with their children. However, if you’re not ready for your kids to consider that you might go away and leave them forever because you don’t have your “life together,” maybe think about whether or not you want them to watch The Sheep Detectives.
  • Apparently, Hugh Jackman’s character took until he was in his 40s to get his together. Thus, he gave up his children for adoption. It’s a good thing Planned Parenthood didn’t get ahold of he and his wife or there’d have been no movie.

WOKE REPORT

Diverse City

• The film is set in a country hamlet small enough to warrant multiple shepherds, yet is comically peopled with diverse main characters, even a female Indian mail carrier.
  • It’s not like it’s a huge deal, and it’s only a lot of diversity relative to the size and setting of the town. After all, it is set in modern times, and I’m sure that there are black shepherds and Chinese B&B owner/operators in the middle of nowhere in the UK countryside. But it certainly looked artificial.

Shepherd Crook

• The Catholic Church’s adoption practices aren’t exactly painted in the best of light, and the local priest, takes a bribe to break its confidentiality. He is repeatedly referred to as a “bad shepherd.”
  • This character could have easily been a government bureaucrat instead of a devout Christian, but I suspect that the book played with the “shepherd” aspect a bit more than the movie did. I thought his inclusion in the film came off as a tad mean spirited, especially since, the adoption angle was not in the source material.
• God is gently poked fun at as the sheep try to reconcile the little that they know of him from a sheep’s perspective. It didn’t come across as malicious.

Get the Man a Glass of Meat

• Vegetarians are good, meat eaters are bad. It’s not subtle.

Some are More Equal Than Others

• Few humans are portrayed in a particularly good light, but the women definitely make out better. As a whole, they are smarter and kinder, and, of the suspected townsfolk, only the woman gets a redemption arc (a small one).