An abandoned dog teams up with other strays to get revenge on his former owner in talking doggo comedy Strays. It’s a significantly more sweary, lewd and hilarious canine adventure than anything Disney could dream up, writes Cat Woods.
“I know people. And people are not loyal.”
For those of a pre-TikTok vintage, this line will jog their memories back to the original Lady and the Tramp. That 1955 Disney movie was a favourite of my parents’ childhoods, and therefore, a staple of mine. It is a love story, and for dog lovers, a reminder that dogs are entirely more loving, loyal and principled than humans. Perhaps Australian band The Fauves really summed it up best in their 1996 single Dogs Are The Best People.
That truth is borne out in Strays, which is a significantly more sweary, lewd and hilarious canine adventure than anything Disney could dream up. If you can imagine Bill & Ted as a scruffy terrier and a delinquent Boston Terrier, you’re on the money.
The scruffy terrier is adorably, tragically naive Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), who has the distinct misfortune of belonging to the scummy, selfish Doug (Will Forte). Doug’s efforts to banish Reggie have failed to date, with the loyal canine eventually finding his way home no matter how far Doug goes to lose him. Until the fateful day that he gets hopelessly lost, and this is where the fun really begins.
Smutty-mouthed, street-hardened Bug (voiced brilliantly by Jamie Foxx) sees right through Reggie’s delusional devotion to Doug and convinces the hapless terrier to band together with their fellow strays to wreak vengeance on loathsome Doug. There’s a love story, of course. Isla Fisher voices Maggie, the laidback Australian Shepherd who provides Reggie with a much-needed sense of being part of a pack. That pack is glued together by Hunter the Great Dane (Randall Park), the emotional goofball convinced he’s a therapy dog.
A snortingly funny turn by Dennis Quaid as himself bridges the gap between the present moment in the cinema and some of the utterly absurd scenarios (Reggie dangling in mid-air, teeth clamped around the leg of Bug who is hanging from a hawk’s talons, or a poop scene that is both horrendous and fantastic). Nobody comes to a movie about talking dogs expecting a dose of gritty, truthful doco-style drama, though, right? Embrace the absurdity and you’ll be utterly charmed by Strays.
The dark undercurrent, represented by dastardly Doug, is the true state of affairs in our wretched post-pandemic economy. Stuck at home, people bought and adopted dogs without the sort of essential foresight that those poor, doomed little creatures deserved. When lockdowns ceased, puppies, dogs, kittens and cats arrived in animal shelters in record numbers. Like unwanted Christmas presents, heartless humans just dumped their newly inconvenient furry friends. For dog owners, like me, who are slavishly loyal to our fur babies, Strays is the revenge movie we need as an antidote to the reality that, just as The Tramp warned Lady, “humans are not loyal”.
Strays is, in the time-honoured style of Stand By Me and The Goonies, a classic buddy movie that has much more in common with those quirky 80s classics than, say, something hokey like The Fox and The Hound or Homeward Bound.
Director Josh Greenbaum has history when it comes to funny, twisted tales that shamelessly mine nostalgic ’60s sitcom nostalgia (Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar), centring music as a driving force behind the narrative, and syncing camera shots with snappy dialogue. Writer Dan Perrault, like Greenbaum, has primarily worked in TV series. Both men understand the demands of strong dialogue and sympathetic characters to lure viewers back for the long haul of a full series, and they transition seamlessly into film.
The whip-smart dialogue, the excellent partnering of pop hits with scenes of belly-laugh inducing catastrophe, and the genuine sweetness of Reggie’s burgeoning trust and discovery of friendship with his new pack are all designed to win you over, and—unless you’re made of clay—Strays is a cheeky, feel-good hour-and-a-half of shaggy success.
For those who consider Wrecking Ball the soundtrack to their break-up, you may need to accept Miley’s pop banger being forever attached to all new, gross-out memories. You won’t be sorry, it’s a small sacrifice when you’re rewarded with the full emotional sucker punch of these lovable, loyal strays.
