Review of The Stray (2017) by Jeff L — 01 Jul 2018

I really wanted to like this sleeper. It sounded like a sweet story, and I'm always happy.

To see a wholesome family film come out. Unfortunately, dog lovers will discover that there's very little dog in what is billed as a dog movie. The screenwriter failed to deliver on the basic premise of the movie, which is that this stray dog saved a marriage, healed a father-son relationship and saved a lost toddler. Worst of all, while the dog possibly saves the father and thee kids from death, it isn't due to any heroism on the pooch's part, but the unfortunate luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dog is almost incidental to most of the film. The marriage survived because the wife made it clear she was ready to bail unless her workaholic husband quit his overly demanding job and moved the family back to Colorado. The dog had nothing to do with bringing father and son together, dad began trying to fix that after moving back to Colorado. And despite efforts to produce a sappy sweet ending, who green lights a Christian family film where the family pet is fried by lightning and then the kids spend the night in a tent with a dead dog and a dad with an ugly chest wound who can;t move his arms or legs?