Review: THE DINK

 by Rob DiCristino

Or: Unhappy Gilmore

As he so often does, our very own Adam Riske dropped some wisdom on me today: I was sitting at home, watching my screener for Apple TV’s upcoming pickleball comedy, The Dink, and wondering why things haven’t quite come together for New Girl breakout Jake Johnson. He’s a famous guy getting plenty of work — he’s played supporting roles in blockbusters like Jurassic World and the Spider-Verse films and starred on underrated series like HBO’s Minx — but have any of those projects taken him to the next level? Remember when he was the sidekick in Tom Cruise’s The Mummy? No, you don’t! That movie’s not real. Hell, most of the questions he’s getting in the Dink junket interviews are about the potential for a New Girl reunion. That can’t feel great, you know? “Aside from TV and streaming, the industry doesn’t have a place for a guy like him,” Adam said. And he’s right! Johnson is too seasoned for a Zoey Deutch rom-com, and he’s already served his tour in the Marvel Universe. Still, he’s a talented comedian! He should be a movie star! This shouldn't be hard!

And perhaps it’s that dearth of forward momentum that prompted Johnson to reach back into film history for inspiration. To wit: The Dink, an endearing, old-school sports comedy harkening back to — and, in some cases, straight-up stealing from — IMDb favorites like Caddyshack, Happy Gilmore, and BASEketball. Johnson is Dusty “The Hammer” Boyd, a former tennis prodigy who, much to the chagrin of his hard-charging father/coach, Chuck (Ed Harris, more genial than usual but still absolutely terrifying), had his career cut short by a devastating wrist injury. Now in his schlubby mid-forties, Dusty has settled into the role of junior tennis instructor at Chuck’s swanky country club, regaling indifferent youngsters with stories of his late lamented glory days. One never knows when a hero will be called to battle, however, and trouble soon rears its head in the form of a tennis purist’s worst nightmare: Pickleball. The club's septuagenarian set (including Mary Steenburgen’s Candace) is obsessed, and it’ll be up to Dusty to stop its insidious spread before it’s too late.

Helmed by reliable comedy director Josh Greenbaum (Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Will & Harper, and 2027’s Spaceballs: The New One) and written by Hollywood Handbook podcast co-host Sean Clements, The Dink is a good-natured, low-stakes affair perfect for audiences looking to taper off from the 70mm majesty of last week’s The Odyssey. It’s a formula we’ve all seen before: Dusty’s a headstrong has-been who never mustered the courage to admit he needed a Plan B. For him, this push for more pickleball courts — led by the feisty Candace, her doubles partner, Judy (Lynne Marie Stewart), and the self-elected committee president, Skip (Patton Oswalt) — is more than just an existential threat to the sport of tennis; it’s a threat to the fantasy that he still has enough time to earn back his father’s love. But when he volunteers to represent the tennis pros in an all-or-nothing pickleball duel against former rival Andy Roddick — a flimsy story conceit handwaved so hard you’ll feel a gentle breeze — Dusty discovers an unexpected path to redemption.

That path is riddled with light-hearted, reflexive comedy irreverence as Dusty struggles to downshift to pickleball’s leisurely pace. Pickleballers are curious characters, he discovers, but the more he gets to know them — and the more he finds himself falling for Candace, a recent divorcee who makes him country music playlists and invites him over to watch The Graduate (!) — the more “The Hammer” sees the benefit of a softer approach to life in general. Sean Clements builds a genre scaffold sturdy enough to support all the silliness, though there are times when Greenbaum’s PG-13 sensibilities make stray gags like Dr. Stone’s (Ben Stiller) porn fixation and PJ’s (Aaron Chen) sexual attraction to a decommissioned battleship — it makes slightly more sense in context — feel a bit out of place. The Dink is charming enough that you’ll forgive most of those missteps, I think, though not even I could excuse the wholesale theft of BASEketball’s radio joke, especially since, perhaps realizing their indiscretion, they failed to take it as far as Zucker did in ‘98.

So while The Dink is unlikely to elevate Jake Johnson’s profile to any lofty new heights, it does give him another opportunity to play his game — so to speak — and reminds us why we all found New Girl’s Nick Miller so disarming in the first place. It’s always great to see Mary Steenburgen, and the two share some unexpected chemistry in a “will they/won’t they” scheme that doesn’t go in the direction a crasser, lazier movie would probably have taken it. Christine Taylor, Chloe Fineman, and Chris Parnell all show up to say hello, and even John McEnroe’s predictable cameo is put to good use as he has a little fun with the fourth wall. Will the cinemas ever start making room for inoffensive, midbudget sports comedies like The Longest Yard, Bring it On, Slap Shot, or The Dink again? Probably not. Will talents like Jake Johnson be limited to the confines of streaming services unless they want to play one of the green army men in Disney’s inevitable live-action Toy Story reboot? Most likely. For now, let’s just be glad we all have Apple TV. You do have Apple TV, don’t you?

The Dink hits Apple TV on Friday, July 24th.