Abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug, a naive but lovable dog named Reggie falls in with a fast-talking, foul-mouthed Boston Terrier and his gang of strays. Determined to seek revenge, Reggie and his new canine pals embark on an epic adventure to get him home and make Doug pay for his dirty deed.
Reggie (Will Ferrell) is a neglected dog. He is abandoned by his owner, Doug (Will Forte), and meets a stray Boston Terrier named Bug (Jamie Foxx). Bug takes Reggie under his wing and shows him how to enjoy the freedom of being a stray. But once Reggie realizes how horribly his owner treated him, he will journey with his friends to get revenge on Doug.
I went into this film completely blind; I never saw a trailer for it and only knew that Will Ferrell voiced a dog. I generally don’t like talking dog movies like “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” but I am somewhat surprised to say that I enjoyed “Strays.” I did enjoy “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” so once I realized that this film was done by the same director, Josh Greenbaum, as well as produced by Chris Lord and Phil Miller, it made started making more sense why I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would.
Does the humor in “Strays” always work? No, but I laughed more than I expected to. There are a lot of poop and dick jokes in this film, so much so that I did get turned off by the movie at times, but there is also a lot of heart. Ferrell conveys enough naivete and innocence in his voice acting that makes you feel for Reggie.
The voice cast is also good, and had believable chemistry with each other. I really enjoyed the friendship between the dogs, including a therapy dog named Hunter (Randall Park), a Great Dane, and an Australian Shepherd named Maggie (Isla Fischer), an excellent sniffer. They aren’t strays but are attracted to each other and join Reggie and Bug on their adventure.
There is a point in the story when the conflict feels contrived. Reggie suddenly picks a fight with Bug about his owner. Reggie wants to give Doug another chance to prove that he cares about his pet, even though everyone knows he doesn’t. This minor nitpick bothers me since the conflict feels forced to fit within a typical movie structure rather than a conflict that occurs organically.
This film is rated R and is not an appropriate film to take your kids to, no matter how cute the dogs are. The jokes can get too juvenile, gross, and crass sometimes, but the humor can also be clever. Most importantly, the film made me laugh at various points, so I would recommend seeing “Strays” in a theater or at least with a group of people, as for me, hearing other people laugh helps heighten my enjoyment of a film.
In Theaters Friday, August 18th
