Strays 🐶🐕🐩 REVIEW:

          An abandoned dog teams up with other strays to get revenge on his former owner. Apparently last night’s screening was the very first showing of Strays anywhere in the world, so that was pretty special. Producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21, 22 Jump Street) team up once again to bring us a raunchy rated R comedy that feels right out of the mid 2010’s, but this time, with talking dogs. Will Ferrell voices Reggie, a naive Border Terrier that has been neglected, malnourished, and abandoned by his abusive lowlife owner Doug, played by Will Forte. First off, Will Ferrell brought so much gleeful ignorance, naivety, and cluelessness to Reggie, making the pup as funny as he is lovable. Abusive and cruel pet owners are such easy antagonists to root against, and the scenes between Forte’s Doug and Ferrell’s Reggie are both heartbreaking (especially for anyone who owns a rescue dog) and laugh out loud hysterical.

Once Reggie gets abandoned, he makes new friends with the likes of a Boston Terrier named Bug voiced by Jamie Foxx who is clearly having a blast as the fast talking foul mouthed stray dog who rather loves being a stray. The banter between Bug and Reggie was a super endearing dynamic, as their friendship serves as the heart of the film. Among the supporting cast of dogs, Randall Park is pitch perfect as this anxiety filled therapy dog who wears a cone and he has cute flirtatious chemistry with Isla Fisher’s Maggie who is also quite funny in the movie. The friendship and bond that forms between these four stray dogs over the course of 90 minutes is so weird, yet surprisingly heartfelt to the extent that I genuinely related to each of their individual and collective struggles. Parents be warned, this is a HIGHLY inappropriate raunchy comedy with dogs talking about genitals, drugs, sex, and other things that are pretty gross. 

Dogs are humping couches, humans are being pooped on, and animals are seen mating, so if your tolerance for this sort of thing isn’t all that high, I would advise sitting it out. Side note, the CGI moving mouths on the dogs look shockingly good, which is something that NEEDED to work for the movie itself to work, especially since the dogs are the main characters. If about 10 minutes of the somewhat meandering second act was cut out along with some of the more repetitive jokes, you’d have a nearly perfect 80 minutes of consistent hilarity. Overall, it doesn’t necessarily omit the cliche narrative beats of standard American comedies, but thanks to a stellar voice cast led by Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, a hearty message about finding who your real friends are, and a wild amount of gross out humor, Director Josh Greenbaum’s Strays is a damn funny subversion of the dog movie sub-genre.