The Sheep Detectives review – Hugh Jackman gives a flock in baa-rking mad cosy crime caper

Jackman plays the farmer in this Babe-style feelgood family film about plucky sheep who help solve a murder Here is a murder mystery that’s like a cross between Babe and The Thursday Murder Club, in which instead of plucky underdog retirees solving crimes, it’s … sheep? With a touch of Watership Down somewhere in the mix, this film, for some, may be off-putting. Actually, it makes for a sweet-natured family comedy, and a spiky and amusing cameo from Emma Thompson certainly doesn’t hurt. Screenwriter Craig Mazin has adapted the bestselling book Three Bags Full by German crime author Leonie Swann, and the Despicable Me veteran Kyle Balda directs, shepherding a boisterous herd of live-action stars and digitally created woolly performers. The setting is the English village of Denbrook, swathed in what looks like digitally enhanced Californian sunshine, where Hugh Jackman plays George Hardy, a shepherd who lives in an American-looking trailer on his field. George controls his flock without recourse to the traditional dog, but rather with his instinctive relationship with them all. And he is dedicated only to raising sheep for their wool, not their meat – which is not exactly t