‘Strays’ review: Dogs go hunting for laughs on comedy’s mean streets, with Will Farrell and Jamie Foxx
You know how raunchy comedies go. Hit and miss. One person’s laff riot is another person’s exercise in jaw clenching and existential wonderment: not just "why isn’t this working for me?" but all the way to "why was I born?"
Slight overstatement there, I guess. Nonetheless, the trash-talking, garden gnome-humping comedy “Strays” appears destined to crack up Moviegoer A while turning Moviegoer B into Nipper, the puzzled, presumably silent terrier on the old RCA record labels.
Yes, there are laughs in director Josh Greenbaum’s (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) new film, written by Dan Perrault (who did the mockumentary series “American Vandal”). At one point, the ragtag pack of four homeless strays spies a U.S. Postal Service billboard. The ensuing round of junkyard taunts and insults directed at the image of a smiling postal worker lasts just a few seconds, but it’s perfectly judged and really funny.
And you really notice it, because too much of “Strays” settles for less. The premise is a roughed-up variation on “The Incredible Journey” (1963) and “Homeward Bound” (1993, a remake of the earlier Disney film), in which the protagonist, sweet-natured border terrier Reggie voiced by Will Ferrell, finds his way home. The twist: He wants to get home so he can bite the penis off his hideously cruel human owner (Will Forte, mugging when his character isn’t masturbating and mugging when he is). It’s a road movie and a revenge saga in one, with a sincere element of teaching Reggie that the only dog/human relationship he has ever known was a truly toxic one.
Reggie’s pals: Bug (Jamie Foxx), a Boston terrier; Australian shepherd Maggie (Isla Fisher); and a mild-mannered Great Dane, Hunter (Randall Park) who flunked out of the police academy and became a therapy animal. There’s some sexual tension between Hunter and Maggie, rather sweetly developed. The voice cast plainly improved the script with each recording session, which is, of course, what they’re there to do. (Park’s game but unconvincing attempt at group howl: a fine thing.)
So what’s missing? The usual scarcities in modern screen comedy: visual finesse and some wit to go with the gross-out stuff. Little things start adding up against “Strays.” Why treat the eagle attack on Bug as a jump scare instead of a sight gag? The Dennis Quaid cameo: Huh? Wha? Relentless deployment of f-bombs? Theoretically amusing, coming out of the digitally assisted mouths of dogs. But when raunch doesn’t click, the strain shows.
I’ll end this Nipper of a review with sample titles of popular comedies I didn’t much like: “The Hangover”; “Ted”; “Cocaine Bear”; that’s enough for one final paragraph. Where is “Sausage Party” when you need it? However uneven, that experiment in unlikely multidirectional offense went there. Now and then “Strays” does, too. But mostly it’s neither here nor there.
———
'STRAYS'
2 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use)
Running time: 1:33
How to watch: In theaters Friday
———
