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Strays review – Will Ferrell leads brutally funny comedy of foul-mouthed talking dogs

With turns from Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, this barking stoner caper follows a neglected animal plotting revenge on a beastly owner

T he cute talking pigs of the Babe films taught audiences to love real animals with CGI human-talking mouths; I myself was always agnostic, finding them lacking in both the unadorned charm of live-action animals and the complete ingenuity of animations. But this brutally funny stoner comedy about four pottymouthed stray dogs on an incredible quest has changed my mind. You’ll believe a dog can talk – and be extremely abusive.

Writer-producer Dan Perrault, known chiefly for his true-crime docu-spoof American Vandal, and director, Josh Greenbaum, have created a cheerfully offensive comedy about stray dogs trekking across America, with their own issues around abuse, abandonment and emotional PTSD, as well as who to hump and when. I like to think they were inspired by the much-loved 1963 live-action Disney classic The Incredible Journey about the English bull terrier, yellow labrador and Siamese cat that trek 300 miles across the Canadian wilderness to get home. In the Disney film, however, none of the animals was in jail, trying to extend their prodigious genitals through the cell bars in a nailbiting quest to unhook the keys.

Will Ferrell voices Reggie, a sweetly optimistic little border terrier who doesn’t understand he is being abused by his owner, Doug (Will Forte), a shiftless pothead who has grown to hate Reggie interrupting him while he is trying to masturbate. Reggie is heartbreakingly enamoured with the game Doug always wants to play, “Fetch – Fuck!” in which he takes Reggie far away in his pickup, throws a ball for him, drives home contentedly alone and says “Fuck!” when the dog shows up hours or days later with the ball. Finally, Reggie is effectively abandoned and befriended by a streetsmart terrier, Bug (Jamie Foxx), an Australian shepherd called Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a lugubrious great dane, Hunter (Randall Park).

Reggie’s new canine compadres radicalise him, showing him how he has absorbed and normalised the cruelty of his human owner, how being a “stray” should be a badge of honour and how he must rise up against the humans. The scales fall from Reggie’s eyes and he is galvanised by a passionate new mission: to find his master and bite his penis off. His three friends follow, perhaps assuming their new friend will learn a life lesson in self-respect and rise above all the violence. Or perhaps Reggie will learn the life lesson but do the biting anyway.

It is an entirely outrageous film with a lot of bad-taste laughs along the way, and a bizarrely real dramatic impact when Reggie finally confronts Doug in the horrendous finale. This is a film that fiercely disrespects Marley and Me and, in a rare example of magnanimity and restraint, doesn’t attack the movie Cats. Homo sapiens get some rough treatment. In the immortal words of Snoop Dogg, who inevitably features on the soundtrack: “It’s a crazy, mixed-up world / It’s a Doggy Dogg world.”

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Review: Off the chain and ready to sniff you up, ‘Strays’ is, at root, a typical tail of vengeance

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What to make of “Strays,” a proudly raunchy, decidedly R-rated comedy about a pack of stray dogs on a brash journey of revenge against one’s abusive owner? As the film’s widely seen red-band trailer makes clear, it’s a live-action talking-dog picture definitely not for kids. But is it compelling enough to fetch older audiences, even the staunchest pup lovers?

Take out its wall-to-wall F-bombs, envelope-pushing scatological humor and often gross and, in one key case, deeply disturbing visuals, and you’re pretty much left with an amusing if rote story of well-meaning animals learning lessons on the road. Think “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” or the more recent “A Dog’s Way Home” but with the furry main characters having their way with couches and garden art, tripping on magic mushrooms, and spouting poop and penis jokes.

Directed by Josh Greenbaum ( “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” ), written by Dan Perrault (Netflix’s “American Vandal” ) and deftly voiced by a cast of comic pros, the film finds an unflaggingly upbeat, 2-year-old border terrier named Reggie (Will Ferrell, in “Elf” mode ) abandoned by his dirtbag dog-dad, Doug ( Will Forte ), on some mean city streets three hours from their ramshackle home. Doug always detested Reggie and only ended up the owner of the sweet pup to spite his ex-girlfriend, who loved the dog but learned to hate the two-timing Doug.

No number of pushy laughs here can make Doug’s mistreatment of Reggie seem anything less than appalling, even if — or especially because — the pooch misguidedly believes his owner adores him, and that Doug’s efforts to lose him are just a fun game. Many of the dog’s-eye-view observations here are droll and relatable, but this isn’t one of them; it’s just sad.

Once left on his own, Reggie quickly falls in with Bug ( Jamie Foxx ), a tough, potty-mouthed Boston terrier with a fierce independent streak and strict set of rules that doesn’t include humans. Reggie and Bug are the classic odd couple, and it doesn’t take a psychic to predict these two fast friends will change (and maybe even save) each other’s lives by journey’s end. It’s a satisfying relationship to watch unfold and one of the film’s better elements.

With the added help of Bug’s stray pals — Hunter ( Randall Park ), an anxious, neck-cone-wearing Great Dane, and Maggie ( Isla Fisher ), a smart Australian shepherd with a super sense of smell — Reggie begins to see how Doug is nothing but a cruel, pet-loathing lowlife. The pack then bands together to find its way back to Doug’s house, where Reggie will punish his ex-owner by chomping off his beloved genitals. If you don’t find this prospect even remotely funny or tolerable, this isn’t the flick for you.

En route, we’re treated to a hit-or-miss barrage of comedic bits involving a pizza-and-beer blowout, crazy-making fireworks, a rapacious eagle, a four-way urination ritual, a smeary dog-pound escape, an unfortunate (and frankly disturbing) rabbit incident and much else. There’s also plenty of goofy, no-holds-barred canine conversation (CGI was effectively used to animate the dogs’ mouths) about everything from territory-marking and why humans scoop up after their pups, to theories about the hounds’ not-so-private parts. A scene in which the dogs all frantically spin in circles before finding a suitable sleeping position should tickle any pooch parent.

Still, the swearing and gross-out humor loses its bite after a while. We’re left with an at times heartfelt and enjoyably observed story that may hold interest with more patient viewers but, due to some episodic scene work and slack pacing, leave others restless. And lest anyone think the movie’s randy-animals conceit is especially groundbreaking, more than 50 years ago came the hyper-bawdy counterculture classic “Fritz the Cat,” (“He’s X-rated and animated!” went the tagline).

Kudos to the “Strays” animal training team, led by Mark Forbes (“A Dog’s Purpose”), which clearly had its work cut out for it. And to the dogs themselves (voiced by Josh Gad, Harvey Guillén, Rob Riggle, Greta Lee and others), who are adorable and engaging even when they’re doing and saying the darnedest things — except during that climactic payback sequence at Doug’s. Beware.

'Strays'

Rating: R, for pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes. Playing: In general release.

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‘Strays’ Review: A Raunchy Comedy Goes to the Dogs

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx voice two canines on a quest for revenge in this crude live-action feature.

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By Glenn Kenny

The King James Bible is loaded with memorable analogies, and one of the most vivid is from Proverbs: “As a dog returneth to its vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” It’s true — a dog will do that. A dog might also sample the vomit of another dog, as is depicted in one of the many intestinal, fecal and urinal gags served up in the relentlessly raunchy comedy “Strays.”

Directed by Josh Greenbaum from a script by Dan Perrault, “Strays” tells the story of Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), a winsome Border terrier who is abandoned by his owner, the miserable, porn-addict stoner Doug (Will Forte).

Alone in an alley, Reggie gets the come-on from some sexy Afghan hounds. How does prostitution work in unsupervised dog society? It is never explained, just as it’s never explained why the animals speak to each other in English while not understanding the English spoken by the humans. The movie uses a mix of live action and computer animation, but world-building was not quite a priority here.

Once Reggie meets the street-smart Boston terrier Bug (Jamie Foxx) and realizes the extent to which Doug hated him, he resolves to find the man and bite off one of his most beloved extremities. In this quest, the new friends are joined by two domesticated dogs: Hunter (Randall Park), a timid Great Dane, and Maggie (Isla Fisher), an elegant but earthy Australian Shepherd.

Over the next 90-plus minutes, the canines drop as many F-bombs as Pacino did in “Scarface.” Then there are the scatological jokes, each one more outlandish than the last, none bearing the slightest tinge of wit or joy. (The thing about John Waters’s extreme underground comedies is that they had, you know, enthusiasm.) Granted, a scene here that takes aim at the convention of the “narrator dog” does produce a curdled laugh, but it does so on its way to a truly nihilistic punchline.

And yet as that proverb warns, one unfortunately can’t rule out a sequel.

Strays Rated R for relentless language, crude humor and gore. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misstated a type of dog in “Strays.” Reggie is a Border terrier, not a mutt. The error was repeated in a picture caption.

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'Strays' review: Will Ferrell's hilarious dog movie puts raunchy spin on 'Homeward Bound'

Every so often when writing movie reviews by a pair of snuggly and often snoring Boston Terriers, one wonders what they’d say if given the opportunity – perhaps “I love you, now stop typing and throw that tennis ball.” The new talking-dog movie “Strays” explores that same idea and the results are hilarious, heartwarming and outrageously filthy.

Like “Homeward Bound” with masturbation jokes and randy squirrels, the wry and raunchy comedy (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters now ) stars Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx as a pair of canine besties on an epic journey with their woof pack to bite a man in his private parts.

There are running gags about the size of doggy genitalia, nonstop cursing, plus a psychedelic trip involving a couch named Dolores, and director Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) unleashes both unruly shenanigans and big-hearted feels without being obnoxious or cloying. 

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A Border Terrier named Reggie (voiced by Ferrell) lives in a rural small town with his cruel owner Doug (Will Forte), who blames the scruffy little guy for everything that’s gone wrong in his life. Naive and optimistic to a fault, Reggie love-love-loves Doug and every time his human tries to ditch him, he sees it as a game. But when Doug drops him in the big city and speeds away, Reggie begins to worry about not only getting home but surviving.

He’s saved from a couple of huge canine bruisers by Bug (Foxx), a street-smart Boston who teaches Reggie the rules of being a stray: Pee on something if you want it, hump whatever you’d like, and enjoy the freedom of being on your own. Bug then introduces his new BFF to a couple of pals. Hunter the Great Dane (Randall Park) is an anxiety-ridden, cone-wearing therapy dog who washed out of K-9 police training, while Maggie (Isla Fisher), an Australian Shepherd with a gifted sniffer, is a house pet who resents a younger puppy getting all the love from her people.

With a new perspective and a fresh sense of anger, Reggie sets out to take revenge on Doug and his confidants come with him on a humorous Homeric odyssey, tussling with a hungry eagle, running afoul of animal control and munching some seriously funky mushrooms. 

Talking dog movies are a polarizing genre, mainly because chatty animals with moving mouths can be pretty weird. You get used to it fairly quickly here, though, as you fall for the lovable main characters. (While cute critter flicks are usually family-friendly, this one is decidedly not for kids.) Reggie is an adorably complex dude, Bug is the film’s chief scene-stealer, and Hunter and Maggie are loyal pals crushing on each other with a “Will they or won’t they?” sexual tension. In addition to using computer-generated animals, Greenbaum has real dogs playing the main characters so you’re much more invested in their quest than, say, the special-effects pooch of “The Call of the Wild.”

The screenplay by Dan Perrault (“American Vandal”) also tries to get into the mind of dogs in a really insightful way. Often it’s for a humorous bit like Bug’s twirly routine to lay down and take a nap, the gossipy goings-on at the local dog park, or one truly astounding display of feces. But there’s also a whole scene devoted to what goes through a canine mind when fireworks are going off that’s simply brilliant. Obviously, folks will come for pups dropping f-bombs and mad drug trips straight out of “21 Jump Street,” though it’s aspects like Bug’s profound backstory that put some real meat on the bone. 

“Strays” is definitely a treat, especially for dog lovers who will howl with laughter and also cry at its empathetic understanding that we all, furry or otherwise, just want to be loved. And after seeing it, a lick from your best friend means more than ever before.

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‘Strays’ Review: Foul-Mouthed Dogs Teach Humans a Few New Tricks in Original Talking-Dog Comedy

Will Ferrell leads a voice cast including Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher and Randall Park in an R-rated spin on a genre typically aimed at kids — but decidedly not kid-friendly this time around.

By Todd Gilchrist

Todd Gilchrist

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Pet owners spend an inordinate amount of time imagining, ascribing, even acting out the behaviors of their animals. “ Strays ” feels like the natural — if comically exaggerated — extension of that impulse, chronicling the personality of a border terrier named Reggie as he and three canine pals make an arduous trek back to Reggie’s owner, along with all of the attendant misunderstandings and misinterpretations about the human world around them.

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Perrault’s script conceives the world of Reggie and his companions quite literally from the ground up, looking at the choices of humans and making their own assumptions about what they’re doing and why, be it a game of fetch or chronic masturbation. Until he encounters Bug, Reggie loves Doug unconditionally — either ignoring, rationalizing or accepting blame for the human’s misanthropic self-absorption — and it’s this psychological aspect which gives the film a uniqueness among “talking animal” movies and a very contemporary resonance at a time when people are more aware than ever about the diagnoses and mechanics of interpersonal relationships. Hard though it may be for some viewers to watch as Doug emotionally mistreats Reggie, the movie astutely helps the little pup pivot as he realizes that every dog deserves to hear they’re a good boy or girl, and that they’re not bad just because they don’t.

Greenbaum is more than a ringleader behind the camera. Though he stages some really fun sequences that hilariously leverage the differences between the dogs (in particular involving the well-endowed but insecure Hunter), he also keeps the animal chaos on a short enough leash to maintain those emotional throughlines. As producers, Lord and Miller have always had a great sense of how far to let a comedic bit go before pulling back, and their touch here is palpable as the dogs indulge in drug trips and scatological digressions that are very funny but almost always exercise the audience’s feelings as much as their funny bones. That the movie wraps up its business in just over 90 minutes is also an enormous virtue, but the fact that Greenbaum and his collaborators elicit genuine emotion while also racing through some very inventive beats for a road trip comedy is a testament to how expertly they handle the material.

As for the cast, all of the voice actors feel like pinch hitters — easy with a joke or comeback, great at improvising to match the behavior of their four-legged counterpart — with Ferrell at the center of it providing the perfectly ebullient vocal accompaniment to Reggie’s dopey, cheerful little face. Meanwhile, Forte is appropriately loathsome as only the once and future MacGruber can be, while also seeming to recognize that he’s fifth on the call sheet. But beyond the (possible) insights these performances provide about the way that dogs process the world around them (regarding the mailman, one of them says, “you smell like too many homes and I can’t trust that”), “Strays” manages to avoid the ranks of other lost-animal movies, or even this summer’s thickening slate of R-rated comedies, because it illuminates deeper and more relatable truths about how humans can navigate their own relationships.

Reviewed at Sepulveda Screening Room, Aug. 9, 2023. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 93 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release and presentation of a Gloria Sanchez, Lord Miller, Picturestart, Rabbit Hole production. Producers: Erik Feig, Louis Leterrier, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Dan Perrault, Aditya Sood. Executive producers: Nikki Baida, Julia Hammer, Douglas C. Merrifield, Jessica Switch.
• Crew: Director: Josh Greenbaum. Screenplay: Dan Perrault. Camera: Tim Orr. Editors: Greg Hayden, Sabrina Plisco, David Rennie. Music: Dara Taylor.
• With: Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Will Forte, Brett Gelman, Rob Riggle, Josh Gad, Sophia Vergara.
• Music By: Dara Taylor

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Strays Is Crude, Rude, and Very Funny

I can’t immediately recall the exact moment that Strays randomly cut away to a shot of three squirrels fucking, but I knew then that the movie had won my heart. Josh Greenbaum’s comedy is built around a simple premise, which is that watching animals act and speak in profane ways is inherently hilarious. That premise is solid. What’s more, that premise is true: Animals are animals, and while sweet, family-friendly quests of discovery like The Incredible Journey certainly have their place, sometimes you just have to let a dog hump the couch. Maybe because on some subconscious level, we ourselves probably wish we could hump that couch. If my cat could speak, I doubt he’d be proper and wise; he’d be foul-mouthed and filter-free.

Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), the Border terrier protagonist of Strays , is none of those things. Rather, he’s an innocent dolt with a pothead layabout, Doug (Will Forte), for his ostensible owner. Besides being an all-around dirtbag, Doug also blames the dog for the breakup of his most recent relationship and thus wants desperately to be rid of this eager pup. Doug’s increasingly elaborate efforts to lose Reggie by driving him further and further away are ultimately successful, and our hero finds himself lost in the big city where he befriends a pack of strays led by Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a chatty Boston terrier. Once he realizes that Doug meant to get rid of him, Reggie decides to embark on a quest to find his old human and bite his penis off. Bug joins in, along with Maggie (Isla Fisher), an Australian Shepherd with a keen sense of smell, and Hunter (Randall Park), an anxious Great Dane who had dreams of becoming a K-9 but now works as a therapy dog. (He wears a cone not because he’s recovering from anything, but because it makes him feel safe.)

If you’ve seen the trailer, you pretty much know what the movie is: a constant escalation of rudeness with director Greenbaum and writer Dan Perrault trying to one-up themselves from scene to scene. The film’s bits play off on familiar notions like dogs’ fear of fireworks or their hatred of the mailman, not to mention the idea that you own what you pee on. (This does lead to a particularly funny bonding scene where the dogs pee on each other.) The story doesn’t want to surprise us so much as it wants to live down to our crude expectations. At its best, as with the aforementioned squirrel-a-trois , Strays jolts us with randomness. But most of the time, it’s pleasingly, predictably deranged. Then, just when it seems like it might start to head in a more treacly direction, it turns right back around and gets even nastier. With all its vulgarity, the movie plays to your inner nine-year-old, even though nine-year-olds probably shouldn’t see it.

But beneath all the shit and dick jokes, Strays is also artfully done. The dogs are a combination of real animal performances and VFX, especially when it comes to mouth movements. It’s fairly seamless; the characters seem to move and act mostly like real animals, which in turn makes the profanity that much funnier. Ferrell is an old hand at playing kind-hearted, naïve innocents. This man was Elf , after all. He brings some of that same wide-eyed, childlike energy to the voice of Reggie. Foxx has always been great at playing confident motor-mouths, and he gives Bug a punchy grandiosity that feels just right. For all the iron-clad hilarity of its premise, Strays wouldn’t work nearly as well if it weren’t so well cast.

Strays seeks to fill the shoes of previous movies like Good Boys (they’re kids … and they’re profane!) and Sausage Party (they’re food … and they’re profane!), but it can’t quite reach the heights of those films, which actually had some thematic oomph to them. ( Sausage Party in particular worked its way to a pretty damning exploration of religious belief.) In its sly nods to noble-animal movies and previous journeys of discovery, Strays feels more like a spoof, the kind of movie that only exists in the light of other movies. That’s okay. Its inspired depravity is more than enough for a few good belly laughs, and really, what more does one want from Hollywood in the middle of August?

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'Strays' Review: This R-Rated Talking Dog Comedy Delivers on Its Filthy Premise

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx lend their voices to the hilarious new comedy from the team behind 'Barb & Star' and 'Cocaine Bear.'

This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist. The R-rated comedy isn't what it used to be. It's not that it declined in quality, as recent films like No Hard Feelings and Joy Ride have demonstrated , but gone are the days of films like Ted , 21 Jump Street , and Bridesmaids dominating the box office. That's why a movie like Strays is so promising. Following in the tradition of Sausage Party , Good Boys , and The Happytime Murders , the new comedy takes something that, from the outside, might appear kid-friendly and morphs it into something edgier and R-rated. Throw in the creatives behind Barb & Star go to Vista del Mar , American Vandal , and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse , and an adorable canine cast voiced by an A-list stars, and you've got yourself a potential winner.

Strays follows Reggie ( Will Ferrell ), a naive two-year-old Border Terrier who is abandoned by his cruel and selfish owner Doug ( Will Forte ), who blames the hapless pup for his girlfriend dumping him. Fortunately, Reggie isn't on his own for too long as he quickly befriends the feisty and street smart Boston Terrier Bug ( Jamie Foxx ), who teaches him the ropes of being a stray. Bug also introduces Reggie to two "non" strays, Maggie ( Isla Fisher ), an Australian Shepard whose young owner has begun to ignore her in favor of a new puppy, and Hunter ( Randall Park ), an anxious and awkward therapy dog who wears a cone. While initially in denial of Doug's abusive and neglectful behavior, Reggie is soon convinced and vows revenge on his former owner. Specifically, he wants to get it by "biting his dick off." Throughout their journey, the four dogs deal with fireworks, mushrooms, killer birds, lost girls, poop, and a sensitive dogcatcher ( Brett Gelman ) all while their perspectives on the world around them start to shift.

RELATED: 'Strays' Director Josh Greenbaum on R-Rated Talking-Dog Comedy, Lord and Miller’s Involvement [Exclusive]

'Strays' Plays out Exactly as Advertised

If you've seen the trailer for Strays , then you should know exactly what to expect. It's 90 minutes of talking dogs constantly cursing, making sex jokes, pooping, and getting into all sorts of trouble. Much of the humor does rely on the novelty of the likes of its furry four-legged cast saying the most inappropriate things imaginable, and while at times it can feel overly juvenile, it still works quite well. Director Josh Greenbaum and screenwriter Dan Perrault inject much of the personality that they brought to prior projects into Strays . They're not trying to cram a hamfisted message into the film or attempting to make the movie into something it's not, and they seem perfectly fine sticking with its crass sense of humor.

Some of the jokes starts to wear thin at times, including a running bit about one of the dog's unusually large genitalia, but as soon as the laughs start to peter out, another comedic bit will play that will have you howling with laughter, so to speak. This includes an uproarious parody of A Dog's Purpose and a handful of unexpected cameos. Even underneath all of its filthiness, Strays still proudly wears its heart on its sleeve. There are themes of getting out of a toxic relationship, building trust, and finding your own makeshift family. It's able to balance all of this without losing its sense of humor or slowing the movie down.

Strays also runs at a brisk runtime of 93 minutes and the intentionally chaotic energy makes it feel even shorter than that. At times this leaves the film feel a bit rushed and repetitive, as the characters find themselves taking detours before returning to the same location that they were at fifteen minutes prior. The plot itself is very loose, but it's doubtful that anyone is going into this movie expecting some unpredictable and memorable story. You're here to see dogs swear like sailors and that's exactly what you'll get.

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx Memorably Lead the Pack

If you weren't already sold by the sheer concept of Strays , the film also boasts a stellar voice cast led by A-listers like Ferrell and Foxx. Ferrell's voice perfectly fits Reggie's innocence, he's playing it similarly to what he did with Buddy the Elf, but obviously with much less of a filter. While it's already easy to root for an adorable dog in a movie, Ferrell still doesn't phone it in, although he's playing more of the straight man compared to his co-star. Foxx's voice injects so much energy into the foul-mouthed Boston Terrier Bug and, just like with Ferrell, he could have easily phoned in the role. Instead, he opts to go all out and takes full advantage of the film's R-rating. Fisher and Park are equally amusing as Maggie and Hunter, both of whom are clearly having a ball with their roles.

Forte also gets a couple of good laughs as the film's human lead (and villain) Doug, despite only being present during the very beginning and the end of the film. It was a bold choice for Forte to take on this kind of role as his character is designed to make the audience immediately hate him, but he manages to make it work as the porn-addicted, weed-smoking loser who takes pride in his private parts over anything else.

Strays aims to be as raunchy and dirty as a talking dog movie can get, taking full advantage of its premise, although never really going anywhere beyond that. Not all the jokes land perfectly, but those that do illicit some of the biggest and best laughs you'll have at the theater all summer. Those who were left unimpressed by the film's marketing should likely sit this one out, but those looking to embrace their inner middle-schooler sense of humor will have a ball with Strays .

The Big Picture

• Strays delivers exactly what it promises: 90 minutes of talking dogs making inappropriate jokes, cursing, and getting into trouble. The humor may be juvenile at times, but it works well overall.
• The film boasts a stellar voice cast with Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx leading the pack.
• While the plot may feel rushed and repetitive, Strays succeeds at being a raunchy dog movie that doesn't strive to be anything more.

Strays comes to theaters on August 18.

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Strays review: a one-trick dog comedy

“Strays is a sporadically funny, but frustratingly one-note R-rated comedy.”

• Exceptionally well-cast vocal performances
• Several laugh-out-loud moments
• Numerous gross-out moments that land with a thud
• A second act that drags
• A one-note, raunchy sense of humor

With Strays , what you see is what you get. The film’s trailers have sold it as an R-rated comedy about a bunch of foul-mouthed dogs who decide to try and get revenge on a nasty previous owner. It is, for better or worse, exactly that. Directed by Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar director Josh Greenbaum and produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Strays is a raunchy comedy that tries to mine as much as it possibly can from the mere idea that dogs’ inner thoughts might not be nearly as sanitized as humans like to think.

If that sounds like a small resource for a 95-minute comedy to try and sustain itself on, that’s because it is. Strays is, in many ways, the same few jokes repeated over and over again for an hour-and-a-half. In certain instances, it works as a perfectly enjoyable, admirably vulgar studio comedy, bhe cumulative effect of the film could better be described as mildly irritating rather than laugh-out-loud funny. Ultimately, the movie is a minor, forgettable effort for all involved, including its selection of well-cast voice actors.

Strays doesn’t waste any time setting up its story. In its thankfully succinct prologue, the film introduces viewers to Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), a scrappy young dog who is blindly in love with his abusive, self-involved owner, Doug (Will Forte). When Doug, who spends more time getting high and complaining about his life than he does taking care of Reggie, realizes that he’s on the verge of being evicted, he decides to rid himself of his dog owner responsibilities once and for all. In order to do so, he gets into the habit of driving Reggie miles away from his house and throwing a tennis ball into the distance in the hope that he’ll be able to leave his dog completely stranded.

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One day, Doug succeeds when he drops Reggie off in a city hours away from their home. Reggie, still as innocent as ever, quickly strikes up a friendship with one of the city’s other stray dogs, Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), whose bad attitude, but undying loyalty makes him an ideal companion for Ferrell’s naive pup. As Bug tries to explain what stray life can be like to Reggie, he introduces him to two of his closest friends: a therapy dog named Hunter (voiced by Randall Park) and Maggie (voiced by Isla Fisher), the frustrated first dog of a social media-obsessed influencer.

While Bug, Hunter, and Maggie succeed in making Reggie feel welcome in their city, they aren’t as successful in getting his former owner out of his mind. On the contrary, he decides he needs to find his way back to Doug so that he can violently repay him for all the abuse that was unloaded on him over the years. When Maggie, Hunter, and Bug subsequently agree to accompany him on his mission, they unexpectedly set out on a journey filled with more outlandish moments, bathroom jokes, and twists of fate than even the most prepared viewer will likely see coming. Unfortunately, not all of Strays ’ second-act gags work as well as the few that do.

The film’s most successful jokes include a subversive reference to the Josh Gad-starring A Dog’s Purpose movies from 2017 and 2019, which present a far sweeter version of a canine’s everyday life than Strays . The reference in question comes near the film’s midpoint and it takes a turn that not only comes out of nowhere, but packs a greater sustained punch than nearly every other joke that Strays has to offer. The film’s other noteworthy highlight, meanwhile, is an acid trip sequence that’s easily Strays ‘ most experimental and visually ambitious — and it pays off in a way that is both fittingly mean-spirited and genuinely funny.

One of the reasons why Strays ’ hallucinatory drug trip sequence lands as well as it does is that it’s one of the few moments in the film where Greenbaum seems genuinely comfortable with changing up its otherwise flat visual language. For most of its runtime, Strays is forced by the very nature of its story to adopt as low-key a visual style as possible, one that allows Greenbaum and company to constantly highlight the surprisingly expressive faces of its four canine leads. That problem, while largely unavoidable, just makes Strays ’ slowest sections all the more noticeable.

Despite its relatively short runtime, there are stretches throughout Strays ’ second and third acts that drag, usually as a direct result of the film’s one-note sense of humor. Its few highlights and admirable creative swings aside, Strays fails to find consistently new and satisfying ways to mine comedy out of its paper-thin premise. In order to try and make up for that fact, the movie relies on the kind of poop and pee jokes that are both painfully obvious and ineffective. Strays is, therefore, exactly the film that you likely think it is.

If you found its premise and trailers intriguing, the odds are high that you’ll likely have a good time with Strays . If you didn’t, then you definitely won’t. There’s nothing deeper hiding beneath the surface of Strays , nor are there enough clever twists on its story to make it anything more than one of this year’s most forgettable studio comedies to date.

Strays is now playing in theaters.

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'Strays' review: Foul-mouthed dogs-behaving-badly comedy belongs in the pound

If 90 minutes of repetitive raunchy dog jokes sounds like your idea of a good time, 'strays' is the movie for you..

Talk about dog crap.

"Strays" is a foulmouthed comedy where dogs incessantly cuss and behave badly. That's it, that's the whole movie. Cute, cuddly pups dropping F-bombs like the mobsters in "Goodfellas," making jokes about sex and excrement and body parts, both their own and those of humans. That's — and I can't stress this enough — it . Are we having fun yet?

Director Josh Greenbaum and screenwriter Dan Perrault know what they're doing in the field of comedy — Greenbaum directed the deliriously loopy "Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar," Perrault helped create the Netflix sensation "American Vandal" — but here they're in the dog house, stuck in a one note movie whose one note gets played over and over and over, and is never funny to begin with. Woof is right.

Will Ferrell voices Reggie, a Border Terrier who is cruelly abused by his hapless loser-slacker-stoner owner Doug (Will Forte, successfully playing unlikeable), who does everything in his power to get rid of his dog. When Doug drops him off in the city and speeds away, Reggie is on his own, until he meets up with a street smart Boston Terrier, Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who shows him the ropes of stray dog life.

They team up with Maggie (Isla Fisher), a feisty Australian Shepherd, and Hunter (Randall Park), a noble, cone-wearing Great Dane, and they decide to help Reggie find his way back home — not so Reggie and Doug can reunite, but so Reggie can bite Doug in the genitals.

Yes, the movie hinges on a genital biting quest, and if you think that's hilarious, you'll love the copious amounts of jokes about urine, poop, vomit, sex, drugs and various other supposedly taboo topics the movie rolls around in like its own waste.

But they're not taboo, they're just immaturely handled, and "Strays" seems tailor-made for 14-year-old boys to giggle at, even though 14-year-old boys probably don't want to giggle at a movie about dogs. So "Strays" is stuck being a naughty movie about pups — "Homeword Bound," but with swear words — made for dog lovers who probably don't choose to imagine their cuddly pals cursing non-stop like Samuel L. Jackson after stubbing his big toe.

In 2016, "Sausage Party" took a similar approach with everyday grocery store items, making them filthy and foul-mouthed and decidedly R-rated. But that movie doubled as a smart allegory on organized religion, while there's nothing going on beneath the surface of "Strays," which has precious little to say about our relationships with dogs, the nature of pet ownership or the light that shines inside our furry friends. They're just vessels for juvenile humor, and "Strays" quickly wears out its welcome. Send it straight to the pound.

Rated R: for pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use

Running time: 93 minutes

In theaters

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‘Strays’ Review: Crude Dog Comedy Is a Clever Laugh Riot Made for Pet Lovers

The jokes may be juvenile in the new film from the director of “Barb and Star,” but they certainly work

It’s been said, probably, that every movie would be even better with wiener jokes. I don’t think this was said by very mature individuals, nor do I think they were sober when they said it, but I’m pretty sure it’s been said at least once or twice. Probably by college students binge-watching “South Park” and huffing Cheeto dust.

In any case, those amateur philosophers are probably the target audience for “Strays,” a talking animal movie in the illustrious vein of “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” and the Owen Wilson version of “Marmaduke.” But although the majority of films where live-action animals talk with the assistance of flappy-mouthed CGI are made for children — who theoretically are enchanted by such things — “Strays” is full of profanity, jokes about sex and violence, and pervasive themes about abusive relationships.

And while it’s easy to imagine a cranky old critic waving his cane around, complaining about subverting all these family-friendly archetypes, you’ll have to go somewhere else for that. “Strays” is trying to be offensive, and at some point it’ll probably hit your gag reflex (your mileage might vary on when), but it’s also very funny and, in its odd and exceptionally crude way, kinda sweet.

“Strays” stars Will Ferrell as the voice of Reggie, an adorable Border Terrier who absolutely loves his human owner, Doug (Will Forte), who absolutely hates Reggie’s guts. Reggie’s playful shenanigans cost Doug his girlfriend and his favorite bong, and always cuts into his (nearly constant) masturbation schedule.

So Doug drives Reggie out into the country, throws his favorite ball into the woods, and drives away as fast as he can. Then Reggie finds his way back home, “Homeward Bound”-style, and Doug has to run the routine all over again. Because he really hates that dog and that dog really loves him.

When Doug finally drives Reggie three hours outside of town and drops him in the middle of the big city, it seems like the game is over. Reggie is now officially a stray. Fortunately, he’s got an experienced mentor, Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who shows him the ropes. Anything you pee on is yours, for example.

After having the best night of his life with Bug and their friends Hunter (voiced by Randall Park), a former police dog with a cone over his head, and Maggie (voiced by Isla Fisher), whose influencer owner prefers her new, tiny, camera-friendly puppy, Reggie realizes for the first time that Doug never loved him. And that makes Reggie mad. So mad that he decides he’s going find his way back home and bite Doug’s penis off.

This might seem like a bad idea, but only if you’ve never met Doug. “Strays” does an admirable job of making Doug the kind of guy who, if you found out a dog bit his dick off, would make you think “Good dog.” If Doug had any redeeming qualities whatsoever, the plot wouldn’t work. So Will Forte has carte blanche to be the most unlikable character we’ve seen in movies in a long, long time.

Meanwhile, the dogs themselves are adorable, and not just because they’re fluffy. Reggie’s naiveté is balanced by his bravery and loyalty. Pug’s tough exterior masks a wounded soul, and he really cares about Reggie as a friend. And then there’s Hunter and Maggie, who are clearly in love with each other but unable to seal the deal in what dogs call “Regular Style.”

“Strays” was directed by Josh Greenbaum, an award-winning documentarian whose narrative feature debut, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” is one of the funniest of movies of the decade. Like “Barb and Star,” his latest film looks at first glance like a one-joke wonder, but it always finds new ways to make you laugh. The difference is the jokes in “Strays” have a lot more poop and pee in them. I repeat: A lot more poop and pee.

That might have been enough to make “Strays” a serviceable comedy, but the script by Dan Perrault (“American Vandal”) has some interesting ideas in it. The story is a clever subversion of the “Benji” formula, where instead of a stray dog finding a human family, a stray dog realizes he doesn’t need one. There are also wonderfully funny jokes lampooning other films in the talking animal genre. (The gag about “Narrator Dogs,” who constantly describe what their owners are doing, has a fantastic pay-off.)

As for the film’s hit-you-over-the-head theme about toxic relationships, well, nobody expected “Strays” to be subtle. And while it may be trying, with mixed-bag success, to connect with humans in the audience familiar with similar struggles, it’s genuinely successful at making you remember to go home and give some extra cuddles to your own pets, to whom you are their entire world, and who don’t understand that you’re trying to write a movie review right now and you’ll give them cuddles in a minute, OK? Is that OK? You need cuddles right now, don’t you? Alright, gimme a second…

Where was I? Oh yeah, “Strays.” Like I said before, the film is actively trying to gross you out and it’s very likely to do so. There’s a sequence in the middle where the dogs eat magic mushrooms that goes to a very dark place, and to be perfectly frank, I don’t think that was very funny. The film won me back quickly, but sheesh, read the room next time.

Yet for the most part, “Strays” does what it needs to do. It makes you laugh at dogs doing naughty things, and it makes you remember your pets need cuddles. OK guys, the review is over now. Let’s get you some treats!

“Strays” opens exclusively in theaters on Aug. 18.

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Movie Reviews

An unblinking lens turns toward lives in poverty in 'stray dogs'.

Tomas Hachard

Stray Dogs, set in Taipei, examines a family's bleak experience. Courtesy of Cinema Guild hide caption

Stray Dogs, set in Taipei, examines a family's bleak experience.

Tsai Ming-liang's Stray Dogs caps off with two shots, each over ten minutes long, though I doubt that will make the movie any easier to sell, even in a culture obsessed with long takes. The episode-capping tracking shot in True Detective or the opening 17 minutes of Gravity — those celebrated scenes awed us with movement. In his two final shots, Tsai lulls us with stillness.

The use of lengthy, stationary shots has long been part of art-house movie style and the shift to using digital cameras has allowed directors like Tsai to push the limits of the technique. In Stray Dogs , Tsai only occasionally climbs past the ten minute mark, but most of his shots last for at least two or three, each pushing us slowly but determinedly into the world of a nameless father (Lee Kang-sheng) and his two children (Lee Yi-Chieh and Lee Yi-Cheng).

The three are homeless in Taipei, passing their nights in an abandoned lot protected only by sheets of corrugated metal. During the day, the dad makes money by holding up real estate advertisements by the side of a busy street. Tsai emphasizes the dreary nature of the work in three shots, set on a windy and rainy day, each one pushing a few steps closer to the father, culminating in a tight close-up in which he tearfully sings a 12 th century poem that includes the line, "my exploits are naught but mud and dust."

While their father works, the two kids roam Taipei, spending much of their time in a supermarket, where a grocer (Lu Yi-ching) takes a seemingly motherly interest in them. She begins following them through the city until one night she either steals them away or rescues them from their father, depending on how you read the scene. Tsai then cuts to a completely disconnected scenario, in which the father, the children, and a new woman (Chen Shiang-chyi) are now living in an eerie abandoned apartment.

Tsai never resolves that mystery, nor many others, which might prove irritating unless you approach Stray Dogs not as a film about arcs and trajectories but one made up of discrete stages.

The unnamed father does provide a thread to follow. In the film's first act, there's an escalation of despair in him that climaxes in a night of heavy drinking, presented in two shots that are, along with the earlier song, the film's most immediately powerful moments.

But otherwise, Tsai's shots of his characters wandering the city, eating meals, and washing themselves in public restrooms offer a collection of vignettes through which Tsai conveys both the sadness of poverty but also the way it tragically becomes its own routine. And in such a view, the sudden switch of scenario in the second act becomes less a leap in narrative logic than a new perspective—a delayed background story, in some ways—on the same poverty, the same tragedy.

This growing thematic resonance and slow accumulation of emotion highlight the effectiveness of Tsai's stylistic approach. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the longest of Tsai's shots pushed me past discomfort to frustration. In such moments Tsai seems to have hit upon the flip-side problem of showboating shots like that in Gravity : while the latter can hide a lack of substance with flash, Tsai's lengthiest shots bleed out all emotion until we're left with a similarly empty feeling. Luckily, the same cannot be said about Stray Dogs as a whole, which in its most evocative moments offers images that will stick in your mind even longer than they stay on the screen.

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In white type over a series of black screens, writer/director/editor/cinematographer Elizabeth Lo presents several quotes from the ancients, beginning with an observation from Diogenes that “human beings live artificially and hypocritically,” and that they would do well to “study the dog.” And so Lo does, only she doesn’t study the dog in Hong Kong, where she was raised, or in the U.S., where she studied film. Instead, she travels to Istanbul, Turkey, which once had a policy of killing all stray dogs. Protests ended the policy not too long ago. Now it’s a crime to euthanize or hold captive any stray dog.

This creates a not-quite-ideal situation for such creatures. Humans in most international societies tend to think of cats as largely self-sufficient, and this was part of the lure of “ Kedi ,” a 2016 documentary about the street cats of, yeah, Istanbul. But because dogs are considered more overtly social creatures with at least a disposition to be involved with, or dependent on, people, stray dogs can be a bit more poignant than stray cats.

Zeytin, the sturdy mutt who’s the first of three dogs we get to know in this often camera-to-the-ground portrait, is a soulful looking beast, a heartbreaker at first sight. She runs around, goes up a hill, sniffs the butt of a dog with an owner, and then romps a bit with that creature. She then follows a bunch of street urchins of go to huff glue and nod out at a construction site. There she meets Nazar, who becomes a running buddy. The third dog is a mere pup, Kartal, a small black-and-white charmer who seems to mostly enjoy sitting and flopping.

Their interactions with people are pretty sad. Some scoff at them as they make their way through trash bins. A couple of tourists talk smack about Zeytin after they see her defecating on some grass. It takes a little while for the viewer to realize that Zeytin’s feelings can’t possibly be hurt by this.

This goes back to the Diogenes quote. It’s all well and good to feign piety over the fact that dogs are more themselves than people are, and one thing this movie tries to do is make you forget these differences of behavior are for pretty elemental reasons, one of which is the rather distinct difference between human consciousness and that of other mammals.

Dogs are authentic because they really haven’t much of a choice. And once we humans watch, say, Kartal seeming to pass out for unclear reasons—is the dog sick or merely sleepy?—we may wonder a bit about the conduct of the filmmakers. You know how at the end of many movies you get the disclaimer that “no animals were harmed” during its making? I was wondering if “Stray” would have a “no animals were helped” message at the end. Lo wants to make a point, obviously, but I came out of this picture with some questions. And I also thought of an observation made by the music critic Robert Christgau, a metaphorical point addressing a type of artistic preciousness: “If I found a cat trapped in a washing machine, I wouldn't set up a recording studio there—I'd just open the door.”

Now playing in theaters, in virtual cinemas, and on demand.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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