Even Man’s Best Friend can be pushed too far…
Strays is a 2023 comedy film directed by Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar), written by Dan Perrault (American Vandal), and produced by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Louis Leterrier. The film stars Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Brett Gelman and Will Forte.
Reggie (voiced by Ferrell) is a cheerful little dog who is hopelessly devoted to his owner. Unfortunately for him, his owner Doug (Forte) is a detestable scumbag who keeps trying to abandon him, only for Reggie to keep finding his way home. When Doug’s latest plan to ditch Reggie in the city seemingly works, the adorable pooch encounters a gang of stray dogs (voiced by Foxx, Fisher and Park) who open his eyes to the truth about Doug. Now Reggie has finally had enough and makes ready to return home one more time… for revenge.
The film was released in theaters on August 18, 2023. Not to be confused with the webcomic of the same name or the similarly-named video game released in 2022, or the similarly-named psychological horror film also released in 2023, or for that matter the 1991 Made-for-TV horror movie about a horde of feral cats.
Previews: Trailer
, Trailer 2 (international version)
Strays included the following examples:
- Actor Allusion: Dennis Quaid has a cameo As Himself, largely only because he starred in A Dog's Purpose.
- Adam Westing: Dennis Quaid, who makes a brief cameo and talks about having "seen some shit" while acting as a Cloud Cuckoolander bird watcher.
- Affectionate Parody: The movie is an extremely crude, hard R raunchy parody of "talking animal adventure" movies like Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At one point the dogs going on a profanity-laden tirade about USPS mailmen, including but not limited to burning in hell and vowing to rip his nuts off and make him watch. The tirade ends with Hunter's closing insult of "Stupid hat".
- Art Shift: When the dogs try some mushrooms, they appear in different forms of animation, such as 2D and puppetry while hallucinating.
- Artistic License – Biology: A warren of wild rabbits have white fur in the middle of summer, when they should still have brown fur.
- As Himself: Dennis Quaid cameos as a birdwatcher who bears witness to Reggie trying to save Bug from the falcon:Dennis Quaid: "That is the craziest thing I have ever seen. And I'm Dennis Quaid, and Dennis Quaid has seen some shit."
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Doug is a lazy, narcissistic Manchild who smokes all day, cheats on his girlfriend, only keeps poor Reggie out of spite, spends every day trying to get rid of him, and finally tries to kill him in the climax.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Doug's mistreatment of Reggie is mostly played for laughs, although it takes a more serious turn when Doug eventually tries to kill him.
- Bland-Name Product: The beer can Doug is seen drinking from at the start of the film is simply labeled "Light Beer" in a generic font.
- Blatant Lies: When Doug's girlfriend finds another pair of lady's underwear at his house (courtesy of Reggie), Doug attempts to say that he was planning on giving that underwear to her as a Christmas present, prompting her to say that they are currently in the month of July.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When Reggie finally returns home, he finds Doug and — having an epiphany about his owner not loving him at all — calls him out for abusing him and says that he has new friends who love him.Reggie: Goodbye, Doug. fuck you.
- Carnivore Confusion: Though they were starving earlier and certainly have no problems eating meat, none of the dogs even consider eating the rabbits they killed while high.
- Casting Gag: In the Japanese dub, Josh Gad's character Gus is voiced by Wataru Takagi, who previously dubbed Gad in a film about a dog and his master. Likewise, from the same dub, Toshiyuki Morikawa (Doug) had previous experience on voicing villains who wants to see the main hero who is finding him really dead, as well of voicing someone that involves Groin Attack against someone else, except this time, he is in the receiving end of it, rather that being the other way around.
- The Cat Came Back: A somewhat dark version. Doug keeps trying to abandon Reggie only for him to come back. He thinks Doug is playing a game called "fetch and fuck"note .
- Central Theme: Love in relationships and what it can do to a person (or dog in this case). Reggie gets rather defensive of Doug's behavior and shows a lot of self-loathing on his part when he thinks he doesn't live up to being a good dog, hence why he leaves him out on the streets as a stray. It's the relationships he makes with his friends that helps him become a better dog.
- Character Catchphrase: Doug frequently says "fuck", especially when his attempts to abandon Reggie just result in him always making it back home under the impression that he's playing "fetch and fuck". In fact, it's his last spoken line at the end of the movie before the second credits roll when the doctor says they are unable to reattach his genitalia after it is torn off by Reggie.
- Character Development:
- Reggie no longer views himself in a negative light and now supports other strays adjust to life.
- Hunter finds consentment in his current job assisting the elderly instead of living in the failures of his past. He also finds the courage to stand up to Bubsy and tell Maggie how he feels about her. They now have sex all the time.
- Maggie finds happiness now that she can use her sniffing abilities to good use being on the police squad.
- Bug gains a new owner and has changed his stance on people.
- Chekhov's Gag: Maggie is introduced as being a very good sniffer, with Bug saying she can tell what someone had for breakfast three days ago, which she proves by saying he ate a bunch of nickels. This becomes important when they need to find Reggie's home but the only thing they have with his scent is a bandana that Bug already peed on.
- Chekhov's Gunman: When the new pack run into a couple of police dogs, the other dogs mention that they're looking for a lost girl scout. Bug finds that same girl later, and she and her family become Bug's new owners.
- Comically Missing the Point: While the dogs hump some lawn ornaments, Bug tells Reggie to tell the gnome he's humping he's his "daddy." Reggie just thinks that he's become the father to a lawn gnome.
- Cone of Shame: Hunter wears one, and it seems he does so as a type of Security Blanket rather than actually needing it.
- Dark Parody: Downplayed. The film is "dark" not as in a bleak tone, but as in it being a more raunchy and adult take on talking animal children's movies. Instead of returning home to be reunited with his owner, Reggie wants to get revenge on his owner for abusing and abandoning him.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Doug no longer wants anything to do with Reggie and tried a bunch of times to abandon him in the woods, but Reggie thought it was a game and always found his way home. Doug then drove him especially far away to leave him in the middle of a city and he later says it was a three hour drive. He went through a lot of effort to be a really horrible person instead of leaving him at a shelter.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Hunter in particular compares Reggie's dynamic with Doug to an abusive relationship, with Reggie blaming himself for Doug's rejection even though he didn't actually do anything wrong.
- The Dog Bites Back: Both literally and figuratively. After realizing what Doug is actually like towards him, Reggie eventually manages to make it back to the former's house and, with the help of his friends, bites off his genitalia, making good on his promise.
- Dramatic Irony: Reggie spends the movie wanting to get back to Doug to take revenge for his abuse, before finally reaching him and deciding against it to simply move on with his life instead. However, Doug is so annoyed that Reggie keeps coming back that he prevents him from leaving to kill him instead, which only motivates Reggie into following through on his revenge.
- Evil Is Petty: Doug openly states that he hates Reggie and only keeps him because his girlfriend liked the dog; keeping Reggie was the best way to hurt her.
- Expy: Bug is one of Riley from Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, both being cynical, street smart leaders of a group of dogs, and have a burning hatred for humans after feeling betrayed by their child owner.
- Fate Worse than Death: Doug loses everything he owns (including his drugs and porn) and has permanently lost his penis from being mauled by Reggie.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Reggie views himself in a negative light because he thought he couldn't be what a "good boy" should be for his emotionally abusive and neglectful owner.
- Bug has a prejudice towards humans because they wanted to put him down after he bit his six-year-old owner by accident.
- Maggie has some serious jealousy and temperamental issues due to the fact that her more glamorous owners show more love to the smaller and cuter dogs.
- Hunter's low resilience and lack of confidence in himself come from the fact that he didn't pass his police academy training and therefore no human gave him a chance to be part of the police squad, which was the thing he was always trained to do.
- Freudian Threat: As he comes to recognize Doug’s abuse, Reggie vows to track him down and bite his dick off.
- Gag Penis: Hunter is frequently noted for the size of his penis and even attempts to use his erect penis to grab a set of keys at the animal shelter to escape. It doesn't work.
- Gentle Giant: Hunter, the Great Dane, is a very understanding and supportive individual. Of course, he does have his limits.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: One of the police dogs uses the word "motherflippin'" at one point.
- Groin Attack: True to his word, Reggie succeeds in biting Doug’s dick off with help from his new friends.
- Hate Sink: Doug has absolutely no positive qualities. He's a drug addict, porn addict, animal abuser who cheated on his girlfriend for what's implied to be a long timenote and who insisted on keep Reggie (despite openly hating him) simply because he wanted to hurt his now ex-girlfriend, all while blaming others for his numerous faults. In the climax, he tries to kill Reggie with a bat.
- The Homeward Journey: Reggie wants to get back to Doug's house. Not to reunite with him, but to get revenge against him by biting his penis off.
- Humiliation Conga: At the end, Reggie's new friends hold Doug down and spread his legs, allowing Reggie to make good on his promise to bite his dick off. Hunter then poops on Doug's face while his house, truck, and everything he values (drugs and porn) go up in flames around them.
- Indecisive Parody: The movie initially sets itself up as lampooning various "talking animal adventure" films like Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and A Dog's Purpose but other than a handful of beats like a "Narrator Dog" (whose owner is a serial killer) it's really more of a comedic Ruder and Cruder version of those films.
- Intoxication Ensues: Happens to the dogs at least twice: once when they drink beer leaking from a trash bag, and again when they eat hallucinogenic mushrooms.
- Jerkass: Doug, who is more or less the embodiment of how not to be a good dog owner. When he first appears, he curses at his dog Reggie and tosses his emptied can of beer at him. He constantly attempts to abandon Reggie, culminating in trying to kill the dog in the climax. Fortunately, he gets what's coming to him big time.
- Kick the Dog: Doug does this constantly towards Reggie, even attempting to kill him to get him out of his life once and for all. Of course, The Dog Bites Back, literally speaking.
- Kidnapping Bird of Prey: An eagle swoops in during the middle of the movie, snatching Bug up as its prey. Reggie helps free Bug from the eagle's talons, during which the eagle swears at them in eagle language. It's played for laughs during the Mushroom Samba scene, where Bug hallucinates the couch he loves mating with seeing someone else: the eagle that nearly ate him earlier, which carries the couch away.
- Lack of Empathy: Doug doesn't show any remorse for the stuff he put Reggie through. Additionally, he mentions that he didn't care about what happened to the dog in Marley & Me; he simply found that moment "boring".
- Laser-Guided Karma: Doug not only gets his dick ripped off by Reggie (his almost literal punching bag), but he also gets defecated on by Hunter along with having his house, truck, and possessions (drugs and porn) destroyed by the fire started from his nicotine smoker. In The Stinger, although he is treated for his injuries, he is unable to have his dick reattached.
- Logo Joke: The Lord Miller crest appears as a dog tag.
- Mailman vs. Dog: Reggie and his dog friends see their final landmark: the "devil in the sky," a billboard of a mailman. The four dogs start cussing out the mailman on the billboard and swear to bite him, with Hunter adding, "He smells of a thousand different houses, and I can't trust that!" It's repeated later at the movie's end, with Reggie and Bug yapping insults at the mailman.
- Mood Whiplash: The cameo by "Narrator Dog" seems like a simple nod to A Dog's Purpose, but this is subverted when the dog's thoughts reveal that his owner is a serial killer with three bodies in his back garden already.
- Mr. Vice Guy: Bug is a foul-mouthed dog who starts the film with some prejudice towards humans, but other than that, he is a rather loyal and friendly dog who befriends Reggie immediately and is quite caring towards his other friends, Hunter and Maggie.
- Mushroom Samba: At one point, the dogs eat some wild mushrooms and begin hallucinating each other as animated characters and sock puppets with human arms, and end up killing a burrow full of rabbits while high.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Once the dogs come down from their mushroom-induced high, they are all horrified to realize that they brutally murdered several rabbits.
- My Greatest Failure: While he denies it, Bug is shown to still feel guilty for biting his former owner Emma, even if he tells himself that she abandoned him (actually her parents had him taken away to be put down and Emma clearly didn't want Bug to go).
- Never My Fault:
- Doug blames Reggie for the problems he caused himself, such as his girlfriend leaving him after Reggie comes in carrying another woman's panties.
- Bug acts like Emma's parents attempting to have him euthanized was completely uncalled for and an act of betrayal after months of loyalty to Emma... when he was the one who savagely bit her after she startled him by stepping on his leg. Reggie evens calls Bug out on this when he's reconsidering his revenge on Doug.
- Nice Girl: Maggie has some serious jealousy and temper issues but is nonetheless incredibly sweet, friendly, supportive, and caring.
- Nice Guy:
- Reggie is rather naive but also a really pleasant fellow who is more than eager to help and support others. That said, he isn't without his more assertive side.
- Hunter is the Gentle Giant variant; he is very easygoing and sympathetic towards others, especially his closest friends. Like Reggie, he isn't without his more assertive side either.
- Noodle Incident: In a phone call with his mother, Doug reminds her that he can't move back in with them because he can't be that close to a school.
- The Nose Knows: Maggie is explicitly stated as having a particularly good sense of smell. This leads to her becoming a police dog at the conclusion of the film.
- A Pet into the Wild: From the start of the film, Doug keeps attempting to abandon Reggie, only for Reggie to keep finding his way home.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Doug has no job, relies on his parents for financial support, and spends most of his time either masturbating like a horny teen or smoking pot. Not to mention his horrible, juvenile abuse of Reggie, going as far as sadistically attempting to kill him simply for being an annoyance.
- Punny Name: Doug's name is spelt the same way as dog only with a U.
- Revenge: After realizing Doug's abuse towards him, Reggie vows to go after the one thing Doug actually does love — his dick.
- Revenge Before Reason: When Reggie returns to Doug's house to denounce his loyalty, Doug becomes so pissed that he prevents Reggie from leaving and decides to kill the dog just to get it over with. This only gives Reggie the opportunity to mutilate his penis.
- Rage Breaking Point: The fact that Reggie still came home after Doug drove three hours just to abandon him is the last straw for Doug, who decides to get Reggie out of his life by outright killing him. Fortunately, his friends have his back... and, eventually, Reggie bites off Doug's penis like they'd planned.
- Rousing Speech: Reggie delivers a bizarre form of this when he encourages the dogs in the pound to escape by all taking a crap, so that the humans will open the door and allow them a chance to get out.
- Ruder and Cruder: To Homeward Bound-type adventure movies.... very, very much so!
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Whenever the four friends howl together, Hunter would say the word "Howling!" along with the howls.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Ultimately Doug provokes this on himself, as Reggie was prepared to leave after affirming to Doug that he's found a new family before Doug deliberately closed the door and threatened Reggie with a baseball bat.
- Shout-Out:
- There are several digs at A Dog's Purpose:
- The presence of a narrator dog who helps his human meet a girl at an amusement park is as overt as it gets, right down to said dog being voiced by Josh Gad.
- Dennis Quaid, who played Ethan in A Dog's Purpose and its sequel makes a cameo appearance as himself.
- Reggie says that to make a human happy is "a dog's purpose", paraphrasing the last line of the film. Bug replies that he's full of shit.
- Ever seen Marley & Me? Doug hasn't, but he assures the other dogs that he knows the ending where the dog dies; Reggie will suffer the same fate.
- There are several digs at A Dog's Purpose:
- Shut Up, Hannibal!:
- Hunter removes his cone right after Doug says, "What the fuck are you gonna do about it, Cone Boy?"Doug: (after witnessing Hunter taking his cone off) Oh, shit....
- Shortly after, just before Reggie fulfills his promise of biting Doug's dick off, Doug tries calling Reggie a bad dog again. Reggie, however, is far from bothered by it this time.Doug: Bad fucking dog!
Reggie: You're goddamn right!
- Hunter removes his cone right after Doug says, "What the fuck are you gonna do about it, Cone Boy?"
- The Smurfette Principle: Maggie is the only female out of the four main dogs of the film.
- The Sociopath: Doug is not only extremely immature and selfish, but he is also horrendously abusive and neglectful towards his dog, Reggie, showing no remorse for abandoning him over and over again. He will go as far as attempting to kill Reggie with a baseball bat with no hesitation whatsoever.
- The Stinger: There is a mid-credits scene of Doug in the hospital, with a doctor telling him his dick cannot be reattached.
- The Stoner: Doug. When he isn't looking at his porn or mistreating Reggie, he is smoking weed.
- Tempting Fate: While Bug is complaining about how their group has become lost in the woods, he asks how things could get worse. Cue a falcon swooping in to snatch the small dog up.
- Toilet Humor: Lots of jokes about the dogs peeing, pooping, or vomiting.
- Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: In addition to being an abusive Jerkass, Doug is also shown to not keep up with his hygiene, constantly masturbating and even eating his sandwich without washing his hands first.
- Villainous Breakdown: Doug goes ballistic when Reggie returns home despite dropping him off three hours away from the house, trying to beat him to death with a baseball bat.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Whenever one of the dogs throws up, it's usually shown close-up in all its gross glory.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Doug's ex-girlfriend never appears again after the opening scene, and is only briefly mentioned by Reggie and Doug afterwards. While somewhat understandable since she broke up with Doug and wants nothing to do with him, one must wonder why she never made an attempt to get Reggie back or had legal action taken against Doug for stealing her dog.
- What You Are in the Dark: After Bug leaves the rest of the pack to make his own way home, he discovers Riley, the little girl who had previously been reported missing. While Bug initially barks at her to leave him alone, he is ultimately unable to abandon her, and stays to offer comfort until the search parties can find her.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The film ends with this; Hunter has gained new confidence in himself and is now involved with Maggie, Maggie is working as a police dog, Bug has been adopted by Riley's family, and Reggie has taken on Bug's role of giving new strays advice while occasionally staying at Bug's place with his new family. The Stinger also confirms that Doug received treatment for his injuries, but the doctors were unable to reattach his penis.
- Whole-Plot Reference: With the basic premise being a Darker and Edgier Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, several scenes are Darker and Edgier parodies of scenes from that movie:
- The dogs are stalked by a predator (an eagle rather than a bear), who picks up Bug, with Reggie hanging on trying to save it. Rather than defeating it with their wits like Shadow and Chance, the eagle just rams into a tree and dies, dropping the two dogs who take a quite painful but comedic fall.
- The rabbit hunting scene. Rather than failing miserably at intentionally trying to hunt a rabbit for food, the dogs, attack dozens of rabbits thinking they're just lifeless rabbit dog toys while under the influence of mushrooms.
- The gang gets caught and sent to the dog pound and use their wits to escape... by having all the dogs take a shit, so the stink will attract the caretaker and he'll open the door, allowing them all to escape... and knock him right into said feces.
- The dogs help a girl lost in the woods find her family... and unlike the above references, it's actually played almost as heartfelt as in Homeward Bound. Said girl even adopts Bug at the end.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: By the end of the movie, Doug makes a reference to Marley & Me, believing it's going to end like that movie. He fails to realize that he's actually in a talking animal comedy where he's the villain, and quickly receives his Laser-Guided Karma.
