Strays (2023) | REVIEW

Directed by Josh Greenbaum — Screenplay by Dan Perrault.

Recently, Adam Devine blamed superhero films for comedies failing in theaters (or not even being given a theatrical release). I’ve opined elsewhere that I don’t think that tells the full story. I think the Adam Sandler-Netflix comedy deal, which sent several Sandler-led or produced comedies straight to the streaming service, has changed the landscape for the genre by changing where audiences expect to see comedies. With that deal, I suspect audiences have been trained to think that the comedy genre’s biggest stars call streaming services their home. With the state of modern theatrically released comedies being what it is, I absolutely would love to champion the latest of the bunch to go with a familiar concept and take it in a direction that you haven’t seen before. Strays (or Doggy Style as it is called in certain territories, including mine) is essentially a modern retelling of Homeward Bound but with the kind of R-rated comedy that worked wonderfully for films like Ted but not so much for Sausage Party. Unfortunately, I can’t fully support Strays. Because even though it does have its moments here and there, it’s ultimately just the kind of repetitive and immature raunchy comedy that made me ponder who exactly it was made for in the first place. Frankly, its repetitive comedy would probably be a better fit — and be easier to excuse — on, well, a streaming service.

Josh Greenbaum’s Strays follows Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), a young Border Terrier, who has been abandoned miles and miles away from his home by his awful and abusive dog owner named Doug (played by Will Forte). Reggie just wants to get home, even though Doug is, by all accounts, a bad guy, but Reggie is lost and only remembers a couple of milestones from the long drive between his house and the city in which he has been abandoned. Lost in the big city, he runs into a feisty, opinionated, and experienced little Boston Terrier named Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who introduces him to new friends. These are a Great Dane named Hunter (voiced by Randall Park) and an Australian Shepherd named Maggie (voiced by Isla Fisher). Reggie’s new friends teach him what it means to be a stray, and they make him realize that Doug has been deliberately abusive to him. So, they decide to help Reggie find his way home so that he can bite off Doug’s penis.

Here’s the thing, the novelty of Strays — seeing dogs swear and make deeply inappropriate sex jokes — gets old very quickly. What you’re left with is a mostly one-trick pup of a film with no subtlety and very little depth. The film is just around 90 minutes long, but the predictability of the narrative, as well as the repetitive swear words and tiring or cringe-inducing sex jokes, makes the film feel twice as long. I will admit that there were in fact moments wherein I chuckled mildly to myself, but no moments that tickled me so much that I just had to laugh out loud. And, frankly, I only think one person in my theater was laughing consistently. The film does admittedly, at times, mine out some successful comedy from the quirks of man’s best friends.

The kind of jokes that landed especially well with me focused on the dogs’s perception of what humans do, specifically what they think humans do with dog poop, but also the scene where the dogs treat fireworks like it’s the end of the world, which is an instantly relatable comedic bit for anyone who has ever lived with a dog. What really didn’t work for me, on the other hand, were the gross-out comedy scenes and the repetitive sex jokes (especially the graphic ones), like how the main group of dogs is obsessed with the length of one of the dog’s penises. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that most of the successful comedic bits in the film were put in the marketing material, including a celebrity cameo that would probably have worked a lot better on me had I not known about it before I saw the film in theaters. 

When you consider exactly how much it repeats its crude and sexually explicit jokes, it’s kind of strange it isn’t more violent given it was already aimed at an adult audience. This is, after all, a movie with the ultimate end goal of biting an abusive dog owner’s dick off, but that climactic scene is surprisingly mild given the explicit comedy that precedes it. This is one of the scenes that the filmmakers have tried to elevate with pop music that honestly feels a little bit outdated in 2023. Speaking of that awful and abusive dog owner, the film does circle around the topics of abusive relationships, toxic dependency, and struggling to abandon abusive relationships, but it doesn’t have enough depth and it isn’t the film’s primary focal point unfortunately. I should add that parts of the film are really tough to watch — not just because of the brand of comedy, but also — because Reggie’s owner, Doug, is genuinely abusive to this kindhearted pup in an opening that is in moments quite upsetting. 

I’ve mentioned some of the jokes that did land here, in spite of the film’s many problems, I also think that the ending is really sweet and that said sweetness probably lessened the harshness of my critique of the film as a whole because it does bow out in a nice way. On top of this, I’ll add that some of the voice acting gives the central canines a lot of personality with Isla Fisher and Jamie Foxx being my personal favorite voice performances here due to the energy that they give their incarnations of man’s best friend. Will Ferrell’s voice performance as Reggie also does a good job of nailing the right type of sincerity that makes you fall for the pivotal pup. 

If any of this — dogs swearing and joking about genitalia and drugs and sex — sounds like something you’d like to watch, then, by all means, check out Strays, which is chock full of that. Because the theater industry needs butts in seats and theatrically released comedies seldom do well nowadays. But, if I am being honest, even though this certainly isn’t the worst film I’ve seen this year, it was a pretty big disappointment to me. I have a feeling that I’ll forget about this movie tomorrow and that its theatrical release is working against it, for me. Strays is a one-trick pooch of a film that might’ve been easier to sit with — and excuse — had it been released on a streaming service and not been released in theaters, because I’m not sure it’s good enough for its theatrical slot or the costly ticket prices. On a scale of Homeward Bound or Lassie to Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Strays is probably somewhere in the middle. It’s not a tasty treat, but it also isn’t so disposable that it deserves to be left alongside the millions of unmentionable dog poop bags at the bottom of a trash can. Rather, it is exactly what you think it is, which can both be a good and a bad thing.

5 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.