“The Sheep Detectives” cloaks an urgent message in woolly clothing
In any coziness competition, if such contests exist, fleece is tough to beat. It offers a fluffy kind of camouflage when you want to hide from the world’s troubles. That should make the allure of “The Sheep Detectives” obvious at first glance. Sheep might as well be harmless, earth-bound clouds. Just about everyone loves them, and just about everybody loves a cozy murder mystery. What could be cozier than a flock of charismatic sheep hunting their shepherd’s killer? “The Sheep Detectives” is both a powerful story about mourning and a warning against the peril of mindwiping inconvenient histories. Even if you don’t buy into the notion that sheep, of all creatures great and small, could possibly have the brainpower to crack a murder case, a movie like this is exactly what we need in these ungentle days. Animal heroes? Check. Bumbling humans? There’s a whole English hamlet full of them. The only two legs worth standing beside is George Hardy (Hugh Jackman), who tends to his flock like an attentive father looking after his children. …
