Strays, the proudly crude summer dog-days comedy has one funny throwaway moment. It is from what is called “narrator dog” in the film, which means a lovingly staring at the camera and then an adorable pooch doing voiceover love stories concerning his owner. The lovers of those Hallmark-like films about dogs will immediately realize this is a satire of the time when Kevin Costner did an inner monologue for a melancholic Golden Retriever. Yet one does not need to distinguish between A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey to get the way Strays makes fun of all these tear-jerking stories involving dogs as it would a fire hydrant. Finally, but most importantly, there is the movie’s best joke, whose dark punchline I won’t disclose here.
In terms of owners, Doug (Will Forte) is one of those you wouldn’t want to have; he’s a sadistic man who likes smoking pot and abuses his trusted Border Terrier named Reggie constantly. Not that Reggie cares though; this little guy could be Benji’s brother; he epitomizes unswerving loyalty. Will Ferrell from Dissing Your Dog adverts plays him as clueless and blandly enthusiastic as possible making Reggie somehow like a narrator dog himself getting excessively enthusiastic over how great his human appears during the opening montage before showing that Forte’s scumbag can do several bad things within seconds.
Doug finally abandons Reggie after many attempts who keeps coming back with the ball in his mouth thinking it’s about winning something – eventually, they end up in another city three hours away by road where Doug leaves his unwanted pet. There Reggie meets Bug (Jamie Foxx), an ownerless Boston Terrier, who talks dirty and teaches him how to live like a stray including eating garbage and raping whatever he wants. He also makes friends with Hunter (Randall Park), an Australian Shepherd who failed to be a cop dog and serves as an emotional support animal in the meantime, and Maggie (Isla Fisher), an Australian Shepherd whose preteen owner is not interested anymore and has focused her affections on a toy-breed puppy.
Strays certainly commit to its bit. The movie is a ribald, R-rated spoof of family-friendly talking-dog flicks – including Homeward Bound, which it only slightly parodies before Reggie convinces his new pack to join him on the long voyage back to Doug for what could be described as “revenge by castration”. (If you think having Ron Burgundy’s voice coming out of a cute mutt that’s threatening to bite off your dick is funny, then rest assured that this film keeps repeating it until it feels like a dog trainer drumming some tough lessons into unwilling animals.) Some of the more disgusting gags in this gross-out comedy revolve around how revolting our furry pals can become; one visit to the pound starts with a red rocket and ends with a poop water slide.
This comes from the infinite ocean of traits, in mind about the screenwriter Dan Perrault who considers it a joke for dick-loving people – with his mockumentary American Vandal which is a more sophisticated version of the parody. At the same time, Josh Greenbaum directs something wilder than that which made his Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar a pandemic sleeper. However, there are some hilarious shenanigans such as psychedelics and Dennis Quaid’s cameo as himself in A Dog’s Purpose; but nothing beats those casual jokes directed at dog behavior absurdities like one of them saying that “he smells like a thousand homes…” before I forget…
Strays sometimes play as formulaic as what it mock. But all things considered, this is a modern Hollywood comedy. It means there will be life lessons crammed between the chuckles. Will Reggie manage to cut out Doug from his abusive relationship? Will Hunter muster up enough courage to confess his love for Maggie? Can Bug ever put aside its own traumatic past abandonment portrayed via flashbacks that would weep over Toy Story 2 pathos sans Sarah McLachlan crooning on behalf of abused animals (could have gotten her to provide vocals for “When She Loved Me” and those famously manipulative animal-cruelty commercials; talk about a blown chance)? It has practically become Pavlovian how film studios are making audiences expect self-help seminars even when watching the raunchiest movies.
Finally, Strays gets its kibble and eats it too. A good parody usually combines criticism and love: You can laugh at Marley & Me allusions but still want to adopt these characters – especially considering how Greenbaum sticks with real trained dogs by putting CGI mouths on them in order to make one look like a cussing terrier. This movie also contains other jokes about licking or lipstick, but they point out another example of special ties between pets and their owners. It is as cozy in the chest as it is rough on the leg.
Conclusion
Instead of portraying soft and cuddliest animals for long, there comes a talking dog genre parody with an R-rated comedy where Will Ferrell takes revenge against his terrible owner (Will Forte) who abandoned him as a puppy, which also included other voices such as those ones from Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park. For sure, they went to extreme limits when it came to disgusting jokes involving excrement and dribbling patches or red boners. But, nevertheless this isn’t different from a melodramatic sappy comedy; its laughter is inappropriate compared to the sentimental tearjerkers mocked here. Its bark is worse than its byte.
Also, Read On Fmovies