Strays
I don’t know what’s in the water over at Universal Pictures, but I hope the executives in charge keep drinking it. The studio has been killing it in the last year with a string of awesomely eccentric movies like Violent Night, M3GAN, and Cocaine Bear. Seeing original stories is especially welcome in this era of endless sequels. Strays can now be added to the list. An R-rated talking dog movie? That’s a concept you don’t get every day.
Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell) is a Border Terrier belonging to Doug (Will Forte), a loser who spends his days smoking weed and jerking off. Doug hates Reggie and schemes to get rid of him by abandoning the pooch in the city, several hours from home. The eternally optimistic Reggie believes they’re simply playing a game. He meets a stray Boston Terrier named Bug (Jamie Foxx) who helps him see the truth. Hurt by the realization, Reggie announces an intention to find his way home, where he will bite Doug’s penis off. Bug helps him make the trek, as do two new friends – an Australian Shepherd called Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a Great Dane known as Hunter (Randall Park).
Strays is admittedly a one-joke picture, yet that joke is really, really funny. The movie is packed with gags about typical dog behavior like sniffing butts, humping objects, and peeing on stuff. Such humor could get old quickly, except that writer Dan Perrault and director Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) invent uproarious sequences built around those subjects.
For example, the film’s best scene finds our canine heroes locked up with a bunch of other dogs in an animal control cell. Two plans to escape are tried. One involves getting Hunter aroused, the other involves defecating. Further specificity is not needed here, but know that I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Instead of merely throwing out edgy or gross content for its own sake, the sexual/scatological material is used imaginatively, with a core of truth. Dogs do hump and lick their own privates, etc. Why not have fun with it?
Not every bit is R-rated. A short scene involving an electric dog fence and the befuddled animal contained in a yard by it is similarly hilarious, as is a detour in which Reggie, Bug, and friends eat mushrooms in a forest and start hallucinating. A surprising undercurrent of sweetness exists below all this material. Strays takes the friendship between the characters seriously. Bug’s backstory, when revealed, is quite emotional, too. Having a softer side emerge intermittently keeps the movie’s outrageous elements from seeming gratuitous.
Visual effects used to make the dogs talk are convincing, and Will Ferrell’s cheery delivery of absurd lines is one of the picture’s greatest pleasures. Obviously, the story is thin. It’s little more than an excuse to have dogs spew profanity and engage in raunchy hijinks. I didn’t remotely care because I was too busy laughing.
out of four
Strays is rated R for pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use. The running time is 1 hour and 33 minutes.
Strays comes to Blu-ray in an “Unleashed Edition” that includes a DVD and digital code, along with audio commentary from director/producer Josh Greenbaum and screenwriter/producer Dan Perrault. The supplementary material included is a lot of fun. Here’s a full breakdown:
Talk Like a Dog - This is a look at the voice actors from the film. All of them – save for Jamie Foxx, who has been dealing with well-publicized health issues – appear to talk about their approaches to playing dogs. Many times, the stars recorded their dialogue at the same time, and there’s cool footage of them together in the studio.
The Ultimate Treat: Making Strays - This behind-the-scenes feature reveals how Perrault conceived the story and how Greenbaum wanted to shoot the movie in the same way that he would have with human actors. Everyone involved seems rightly amused by the absurdity of the premise.
Poop, Booms, and Shrooms - A look at how the wildest scenes in the movie were accomplished. Particularly funny is on-set footage of prop people showing Greenbaum hundreds of choices for a scene requiring an excess of dog feces. We also learn that the hallucinogenic mushrooms the characters eat in one sequence were made from painted chicken patties to ensure the dogs would eat them up.
Will Forte: Stray Actor - The comedian is the focus here, with cast and crew members humorously claiming he’s just as big a jerk in real life as Doug is onscreen. They eventually drop the gag, celebrating Forte for his comedic invention and willingness to lay on the floor without moving for four hours to shoot the climactic sequence.
Training to be Stray - Animal trainers who worked on Strays are here to discuss how they taught the dogs to do all the things required for the film, including humping on cue. Seeing footage from the set makes it clear how much effort went into this process.
A New Best Friend details how Greenbaum adopted an actual stray dog used during production.
The extras on the Strays Blu-ray are every bit as enjoyable as the movie itself, making this a worthwhile purchase. To buy a copy from Amazon, click here.
