Early noughties-style comedies have had something of a resurgence of late in between No Hard Feelings and Joy Ride. Josh Greenbaum’s Strays, despite more gross-out gags than those, is the latest in a string of films proving this humour is as relevant now as it has ever been.
Riffing on the ‘Dog’ movie – think The Art of Racing in the Rain, A Dog’s Journey, and Marmaduke where they’re told by a canine recounting the deep tragedies of their life – the book of cliches is rife for dissection and parody in Strays. The film opens with gleeful narration from Reggie (Will Ferrell) telling us about his owner Doug (Will Forte) – Reggie, however, mistakes abuse and hatred for love. When Doug abandons Reggie in the middle of nowhere, he teams up with other strays Bug (Jamie Foxx), Hunter (Randall Park), and Maggie (Isla Fisher) to return to Doug and exact revenge for all of the mistreatment as only a dog can: biting his dick off.
What follows is 93 minutes of debauchery as the pack navigate the big, bad, real world to get to Doug; the gags flow thick and fast, mining humour from putting the pups into obscene situations like getting drunk and high. Greenbaum thrives on imagining the “what if” behind a doggo road trip – it’s The Secret Life of Pets if it were crass. And for pet owners, there’s a lot of humour in seeing the internal monologues behind dog stereotypes (hatred for the mailman; fear of fireworks; sofa humping). The comedy goes to some surprisingly dark places for a studio-backed comedy too and it’s consistently outrageous and outlandish, trying to find new ways in which to make the audience really wince or cringe.
But there’s not much else beneath the surface of Strays; it’s more bark than bite. It’s funny and nasty but lacks any real depth. This is made especially worse by the fact that the film tries to take emotional swings thematically and narratively and then undercuts those moments with a joke, almost as if Greenbaum doesn’t have faith in the script’s ability to go a little deeper. It’s not a film that’s necessarily promising that much but the hints here and there do feel like wasted potential. That being said, few films are as appropriately billed as Strays: it’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s gross-out, it’s crude, and it’s really funny. It’ll drive adult raunch sceptics barking mad but for those that can embrace the silliness of it all, it’s a doggone good time.
Strays is released in cinemas on 18th August.
Strays
Summary
Gross-out, it’s crude, and really funny, Strays goes tp some surprisingly dark places for a studio-backed comedy.
