Strays

Plot: A self-described multicultural Saturday Night Fever, Strays is a nineties and quintessentially New York version of a macho cruisers coming-of-age. With abundant charm and formidable wit, Strays marks the arrival of a truly gifted writer/director/actor, Vin Diesel, Frustrated by the repetitious grind of one night stands and aimless hustlings, study drug dealer Rick (played by Diesel) is looking for meaning and intimacy in his life. Like his testosterone-tweaked buddies, Rick is a stray lacking a traditional family structure and wrestling subconsciously with the psychological bruises inflicted by his fathers absence. Shielding any vulnerability under the toughened cloak of detachment, Rich has administered his life with deliberate effort to avoid reliance on anyone or anything. But things are about to change.
When Rick meets Heather, a com-fed walking talking girl next door, he suddenly perceives a new avenue and an opportunity for an open, committed relationship. Though the chemistry between the couple is immediately charged, Ricks street cheek and volatile aggression flare, threatening to extinguish their relationship before it begins. Trying to assimilate into Heathers world, Rick takes heat from his perpetually adolescent cohorts whos ambitions are restricted to riding fast, taking slow, and ditching hard. However, like his childhood, alter ego, Ferdinand the Bull, Rick is only a fighter by training and ripe for the transition to a softer, sweeter serebility.
What makes strays special is its carefully crafted and utterly credible realization of place-and character, in revealing the tender underpinnings and transparent details of the hardened of heart, Strays digs the dirt out of the fearsome burden of masculinity and the arduous road to change. Crass, funny, and startlingly sincere, Vin Diesels Strays is exceptional film making.

- Rebecca Yeldham

From the Official Strays website.