Strays has been branded as a subversive dog movie, unsuitable for family consumption. Wearing its R rating like a shiny badge of honor, it’s a film that seems to function around the freedom of its director, writer, and actors being unleashed. They’re free to make all the dirty jokes and raunchy sight gags they please, where profanity and poop can fly without caution.
But, much like other comedies Sausage Party and The Happytime Murders, it’s a film where the obscenity has to carry the allure entirely. Most of the laughs are derived from the mere presence of a dog movie presenting penises and misconstruing the human world. And once all those dog jokes are exhausted, it falls back on the characters slinging as much profanity as possible as a substitute for a compelling story.
Good Dog, Bad Dog
The film’s premise isn’t all that unique when considering how familiar it sounds. Reggie (Will Ferrell) is a dog with an abusive owner, Doug (Will Forte). Unable to understand his owner, Reggie assumes he has a great relationship. So, when abandoned in the city, Reggie believes his faith in his master is being tested.
The naive dog’s eyes are opened when he meets the city’s dogs. The c*cky Bug (Jamie Foxx) shows him the ropes of being a stray dog. Owned dogs Hunter (Randall Park) and Maggie (Isla Fisher) also meet him and become more upfront with the reality of Reggie’s situation. The four of them appreciate all the allure of being a dog in the city. They snatch scraps from outdoor restaurants, drink beer from the garbage, and hump and pee on anything they please.
After a night of partying, the dim Reggie has a revelation about his toxic relationship. His next goal becomes clear: Find Doug and get revenge by biting his genitals. He’ll repeat these plans in graphic detail and become committed to this quest to get back at the man who wronged him. Thus begins a road trip with plenty of hi-jinks along the way.
A Familiar Route
There are shades of many dog movies present in this picture. The quest for home is reminiscent of Homeward Bound. The longing for revenge reflects The Secret Life of Pets. The tragic backstory of Bug being wronged by an owner feels straight out of the DC League of Super Pets. And the violent resolve has shades of the underrated dog film White God.
Except for White God, every example I listed is a dog movie aimed at the younger crowd. This is worth noting because I started thinking about how this script could’ve easily been a forgettable kids’ film with the dialogue trimmed, the dog poop less present, and the dog penises less pronounced with close-ups. And just like those films, Strays has little in the way of formula-breaking surprises to set itself apart from the pack.
If the film were trying to subvert dog movies, having more gags like the one they delivered for A Dog’s Purpose would do well. Josh Gad reprises his role as a narrating dog on the life of humans and proceeds to describe them in a darker light. The other dogs mock the cameo of such a canine. Had the film had more clever jabs, it could’ve been a funnier picture for satirizing dog movies in general. Sadly, it doesn’t do that, even wasting a chance to use Dennis Quaid’s cameo for further gags, having previously appeared in A Dog’s Purpose.
Routine Rauchiness
True to its advertising, Strays packs in as much grossness as possible to earn its adult rating. There are heaps of jokes about dogs pooping, dogs peeing, dogs getting erections, and dogs humping. They also improv in a manner where it feels less like they’re finding the funny and trying to reach a quota for how many F-words they can cram into the dialogue.
Now, I don’t mind the grossness present if there’s something extra on top of the punchlines of a pooping montage and an erect dog penis. Sadly, there isn’t much beyond the obvious jokes that every immature teenager has cracked about dogs and their movies. The film proves as much by exhausting all these gags to the point where they get repetitive and lose their punch. One can observe so much fecal matter before yawns replace shock.
Best in a Worst Show
If I had to say something nice about Strays, it would probably be its visual effects. The CGI of manipulating dog lips to move doesn’t feel as jarring compared to the old techniques of Synchro-vox. That’s faint praise, though. The staging of the dogs also matches the voice acting rather well, where it doesn’t feel like a redux of the low-effort Farce of the Penguins.
But even the visual strangeness fails to add extra laughs. That seems to be the intent of the sequence where the dogs all get high on mushrooms and hallucinate different mediums. These visual gags are ruined by their execution, where Hunter will point out how his socket puppet form has human hands.
Conclusion: Strays
Strays is a mess of limited ideas, mined from the inebriated story idea, “What if a typical dog movie had more profanity and poop?”. It plays out like many other dog movies, with slapstick and schmaltz. The only difference is that it’s coated in filth to suit the expectations of a crowd coming for raunchy.
But raunchy movies can only go so far with the vulgar before it becomes apparent there’s nothing more to offer. It’s a shame because Strays has one good joke about mocking A Dog’s Purpose. But rather than continue along a similar line of satire, the film settles more for scenes where the four dogs pee all over each other. The voice actors then stammer along, trying to make jokes out of this sight for a minute. They don’t find much beyond the obvious, making it clear that you’re better off getting some beers with friends and providing drunk commentary over a muted Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
Strays was released on theaters on August 18, 2023!
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