Strays: The R-Rated canine comedy that’s one of the funniest films of the year

Strays (R16, 93 minutes) Directed by Josh Greenbaum ****

Back in 2017, I saw a film called A Dog’s Purpose, in a drafty old dump of a theatre in the teeth of a northern hemisphere winter storm.

I remember thinking then that it was a saccharine load of greeting card-level banality, wrapped up in a tale about seven incarnations of a dog’s life, which somehow lead him back to his original owner, now played by Dennis Quaid as an embittered and wheelchair bound alcoholic with all his dials set to self-loathing.

I kinda hated the film, but I was also aware that the audience were mostly openly sobbing around me, the visuals and performances were more than fine – and that being freezing cold, 20,000kms from anyone who cared about me, might not be putting in the best frame of mind. So I wrote what I thought was a fair review, basically saying “it’s not for me, but if this is a film you want to see, then you’ll probably like it”.

Though I still think it is weird, that every incarnation of that purposeful pooch was born within the USA. Like, souls need visas?

A couple of years later, A Dog’s Way Home was a more straight-forward yarn about a lost hound trekking from New Mexico to Denver, to get back to its bereft and heartbroken human. A Dog’s Way Home wasn’t bad at all – plus, I wasn’t suffering from frostbite and ennui when I saw it – and I remember liking the film plenty.

But it never occurred to me, watching Dog’s Purpose or Dog’s Way Home, or any of the other countless iterations of the same story that film-makers have churned out over the years, that this was a genre ripe for re-invention as an R-rated stoner comedy, with enough swearing to get an episode of The Bear over the line and more dick jokes than a stand-up routine at a sex-toy party.

Strays stars Will Ferrell as the voice of Reggie (he has other names, but none we can print). Reggie is a Border Terrier who has been living with a man called Doug for as long as he can remember. Doug is a toxic waste of space who only pauses his porn for as long as it takes to re-light his bong. Doug regularly tries to “lose” Reggie by taking him out in his ute, throwing a tennis ball and then driving off while Reggie hunts for it. But, Reggie, heartbreakingly, always makes his way home.

Until, Doug, determined to make this game the last, drives for three hours to a nameless city, tosses the ball into a skid-row alleyway and screeches away. This time, not even Reggie is going to find his way home unaided.

Reggie make friends – a Boston Terrier named Bug, an Alsatian called Maggie and a depressed Great Dane known as Hunter – and an odyssey is underway. The four friends are going to team-up to get Reggie back to Doug. And then Doug is going to pay a high price for being such an ass-hat.

Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Randall Park and Isla Fisher bounce off each other in the sound booth with a screenplay that piles up the set-pieces and gags from what must have been a pile of possibilities and rejected ideas. That “R” rating means nothing is off-limits and – Foxx especially – can really take the leash off with the improvisations and delivery.

Strays is just a hell of an accomplished film. Director Josh Greenbaum and writer Dan Perrault (American Vandal) know exactly what they are satirising and sending up. They even have the Dennis Quaid cameo to prove it.

If Strays is a film you want to see, you’ll more than just like it – it’ll probably be one of the funniest films you see this year.

Strays is now screening in select cinemas nationwide.