Strays: Potty-Mouthed Talking Dogs Deliver Laughs… and Powerful Message
By Kim Hughes
Rating: B+
If you’ve seen the red-band trailer for Strays, you know the dog-centric, live-action new comedy is profane and outrageous, slapstick and amusing in that distinctly stoner-friendly way.
What isn’t obvious until you see the film is its powerful and persuasive message about the importance of treating companion animals with care. Which — to use language you can expect to hear in Strays — really fucking counts for a lot.
Strays focuses on sweet, trusting, and happy-go-lucky border terrier Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell). Reggie’s human Doug (Will Forte) is a self-servicing, self-absorbed dirtbag who continually tries to abandon the animal only to have the faithful Reggie dutifully return, tennis ball in mouth.
They play a game called (sigh) Fetch and Fuck, whereby Reggie fetches balls projected obscene distances away only to have Doug disappointedly yell, “fuck” when he finally returns.
One day, after once again being angered by Reggie, Doug loads him in the pickup and dumps him in the city, certain he has taken the pooch far enough out of bounds that he can’t ever find his way home. There, on the unfamiliar mean streets, Reggie encounters a trio of similarly unhoused dogs: Australian shepherd Maggie (Isla Fisher), Great Dane Hunter (Randall Park) plus wily Boston terrier ringleader Bug (Jamie Foxx), who has spun the whole unowned dog thing into a positive narrative.
The film’s light-hearted first third finds the quartet frolicking and exploring offerings not typically found in bucolic dog parks, such as discarded food and booze, sofas perfect for humping, and hallucinatory mushrooms (again, you’ve seen the trailer) inevitably steering them towards multiple, white-pawed misadventures.
Slowly, naïve Reggie comes to realize that Doug is not a nice guy, and that he is not lost but has been discarded. Thanks to his canine pals, Reggie is radicalized. The group schemes to visit revenge on Doug, separating him from the thing he loves most (hint: not his left hand).
In much the same vein as Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party, Strays — also decidedly not suitable for children — garlands its heavy themes with guffawing comedy. Unlike the animated Sausage Party, the talking dogs are real (well, the dog part of them anyway) and thus so much more sympathetic. The message is clear: sure, laugh but for fuck’s sake (mimicking movie again) take care of them.
That’s it — the entirety of the message wrapped in kooky comedic dressing — but that’s huge coming from a film as high-profile and well-bankrolled as this one. As someone who volunteers in animal rescue, I can attest that a shocking number among us have not received this message. Companion animals are dumped all the time when they become inconvenient. (It’s an even more pervasive with supposedly “self-reliant” cats). It’s genuinely shameful.
It’s worth noting that, in production notes for the film, the filmmakers stress that the animals featured in Strays were exceptionally well-cared-for. “For any scene that might be remotely dangerous or uncomfortable for a dog,” they add, “the dog was re-created via visual effects during post-production.”
There’s comfort in knowing that watching a movie like Strays, which necessarily puts its protagonists in perilous situations to fully make its point. Go and laugh at the canine quartet’s hijinks. Only the hard-hearted will leave the theatre without deeper thoughts. Job well done on all counts.
Strays. Directed by Josh Greenbaum. Starring Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Brett Gelman and Will Forte, Josh Gad, Harvey Guillén, Rob Riggle, Jamie Demetriou and Sofia Vergara. Opens wide August 18.