Plot: Washed-up former tennis prodigy Dusty Boyd has been reduced to coaching unruly children at his father Chuck’s suburban country club. Desperate for his father’s approval, Dusty blindly supports Chuck’s vendetta against the new craze taking over the club: pickleball. But when Dusty reaggravates an old injury, taking away his ability to play tennis, he resorts to the unthinkable in the name of rehab.
Review: The pickleball craze has been gaining momentum over the last few years as more people discover the game that blends tennis and ping-pong. Having tried the game myself, I found it deceptively easy to play and can result in a pretty solid workout, even though it is often associated with senior citizens. When Ben Stiller was connected as a producer on The Dink, I expected the comedy to be closer to the zany tone of Dodgeball or Happy Gilmore. While The Dink does occasionally venture into surreal and bizarre humor, the Jake Johnson-led comedy mines the formula of other sports movies with the conceits of films about self-discovery. With a cast that includes Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, and Patton Oswalt, The Dink is a far better film than I expected.
Jake Johnson plays Dusty Boyd, a stalled man-child who was on the verge of stardom as a professional tennis player before an injury relegated him to working as an instructor at a country club. His father, Chuck (Ed Harris), has little confidence in Dusty’s success, while Dusty continues to strive for his dad’s approval and love. When Chuck decides to use an old country club bylaw to try to prevent pickleball courts from taking over tennis property, Dusty sees it as a chance to prove himself to his dad. Instead, Dusty hurts himself again and is prescribed pickleball as a low-impact way to rehabilitate. It is in a local court that Dusty befriends Candace (Mary Steenburgen) and learns a lot about himself along the way.
The Dink sticks with what you would expect from a sports movie and follows the usual structure, culminating in a showdown between Dusty and his nemesis that makes for a fun final act. But, rather than training montages, tournaments, and more sports cliches, The Dink focuses on Dusty as he begins to face the demons and shame that have kept him from using his talents to their fullest. Jake Johnson has made a career out of playing characters like Dusty, including Nick on New Girl and Peter B. Parker in the animated Spider-Verse films. Dusty shares a lot in common with his 2023 film Self Reliance, in which Johnson plays another adult loser who must come to terms with his own shortcomings. Where Self Reliance used a sci-fi concept to drive that discovery, The Dink uses pickleball. Johnson has a likable, everyman quality, but he comes across as far more sincere and less buffoonish than we see from Adam Sandler’s take on characters like this.
The film also works thanks to the great cast, including Ed Harris and Mary Steenburgen. Both actors have extensive experience in heavy, dramatic, and serious fare and play their characters here as realistic rather than two-dimensional. At times, I felt like Ed Harris would lean into the over-the-top side of the humor, but Chuck’s hatred of pickleball and the country club’s advocate for the game, Skip (Patton Oswalt), ends up feeling authentically funny rather than cartoonishly so. Mary Steenburgen is great in a role that I feared would turn into an awkward love story, but The Dink handles the chemistry between Dusty and Candace well without making it cringy. There are a ton of small roles for Saturday Night Live vets like Chloe Fineman and Chris Parnell, as well as The Karate Kid‘s Martin Kove, comedian Aaron Chen, and producer Ben Stiller and his wife Christine Taylor. The requisite cameos from professional tennis players John McEnroe and Andy Roddick work far better than I had hoped, as does a funny final performance from the late Lynne Marie Stewart.
Written by Sean Clements (Kevin Can F**k Himself), The Dink hails from Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar and Strays helmer Josh Greenbaum, who just wrapped Spaceballs: The New One. Greenbaum helmed last year’s documentary Will & Harper and has quite a varied filmography this early in his career. The Dink doesn’t go anywhere close to the strangeness of Barb and Star, but it does give me some hope for the long-awaited Spaceballs sequel. With much of the action of The Dink either on the pickleball court or centered on conversations, Greenbaum makes the characters the focus rather than pratfalls or shenanigans. He captures the sports moments well and lets the actors and their delivery drive the humor, without mugging for the camera. Because The Dink is more about Jake Johnson’s Dusty embracing himself rather than judging, there is a solid character-driven angle to this movie that I was not expecting from what otherwise could have been a throwaway sports comedy.
The Dink is a funny movie and one I had more fun with than I expected. It is not as memorable as Dodgeball or as quotable as Happy Gilmore, but it benefits from taking the characters seriously and Jake Johnson’s natural aptitude for playing adult men trapped by the failures of their youth. Both Mary Steenburgen and Ed Harris turn in performances that are more sincere than movies like this usually create, and Josh Greenbaum keeps the movie from veering too far into the wrong kind of comedy. From the leads to the cameos, The Dink embraces pickleball’s silly reputation and turns it into a fun introduction to the sport for many. You will likely leave this film wanting to try your hand at the game, or it may even turn you on to cowgirl country music. The Dink definitely earns the laughs it puts out there and is better than I expected.
The Dink premieres on July 24th on Apple TV.
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