The Dink
Jake Johnson plays an insufferable loser and tennis whizz who is forced to adapt to the inferior sport of pickleball.
Not a sporting chance: Mary Steenburgen and Jake Johnson
Image courtesy of Apple TV+.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
If the title puts you off, then it’s doing you a favour. From the producer and star of the sports comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), this underdog story takes another off-centre sport and places it centre stage (as there are already so many comedies about golf and football). Ben Stiller here takes a cameo as a doctor, leaving the leading man duties to Jake Johnson, the comedian and actor who supplies the voice of Peter Parker in the animated Spider-Man films. He plays Dusty Boyd, an arrogant, self-centred liar and all-round jerk who is pretty good at tennis, but just not good enough. He’s also really obnoxious to be around. Worse is his father, Chuck, who runs the Mountain Crest Tennis Club and cannot disguise his disappointment with his son for losing the Vero Beach Classic to Andy Roddick, the tennis legend. But that was a long time ago. Now Dusty works for his father and gives tennis lessons to foul-mouthed nine-year-olds.
At the start, Dusty tells us: “Some people are born winners. Tom Brady, LeBron James, Joey Chestnut and… me.” Unfortunately, his father, Chuck Boyd (Ed Harris), begs to differ. He actually regards tennis as a religion, calling the sport “a living, breathing animal – and she needs our protection. An epidemic is sweeping across our once great nation and its name is… pickleball, the novel coronavirus of sport.” So he sets up a duel, based on some obscure club charter in which the winner of a tennis match at his establishment stops the spread of this so-called novel menace. Chuck seems unclear quite how he will achieve this, but one suspects that at the back of it all is another chance to humiliate his son. However, still convinced that he is a worldclass champion, Dusty wants to make his father proud…
‘Dink’ is a term in pickleball which describes a low shot designed to force the opponent to hit an upward return. The racket sport first appeared in 1965 in Washington state but has recently seen a surge in popularity as celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Taylor Swift and Novak Djokovic have taken to the court. Even so, ‘The Dink’ is hardly a great name for a film, even if you know what it means. But there’s little here that hits a slam dunk – or even an ace, if you will. It doesn’t say much for a comedy that the funniest line comes from John McEnroe, not especially known for his comedic skills. Nonetheless, he does hit a perfect drop shot here. When asked by an audience member if he is John McEnroe, the former tennis champion replies, “what gave me away? My face and my body?”
Dodgeball was not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination and not even nostalgic retrospection can forgive it its adolescent shortcomings. But The Dink is no better, being a deadeningly formulaic farce skuttled by a sentimental score and one predictable comic beat after another. The best one can say for it is that Mary Steenburgen brightens up the scenes she is in, while everybody else just looks embarrassed that they had accepted the cheque.
Cast: Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Aaron Chen, Ben Stiller, Ed Harris, Chloe Fineman, Patton Oswalt, Andy Roddick, John McEnroe, Cleo King, Lynne Marie Stewart, Don Lake, Wayne Wilderson, Lennon Parham, Chris Parnell, Martin Kove, Christine Taylor, Fortune Feimster, Steve Berg, Robert Rebetsky, Boone Nelson, Nathan Blair, Indiana Elle, Cayden Romero.
Dir Josh Greenbaum, Pro Ben Stiller, John Lesher, Rob Paris, Mike Witherill and Jake Johnson, Ex Pro Josh Greenbaum and Sean Clements, Screenplay Sean Clements, Ph Carl Herse, Pro Des Caity Birmingham, Ed Greg Hayden, Music Dara Taylor, Costumes Beth Morgan.
Red Hour Films/Rivulet Films-Apple TV+.
103 mins. USA. 2026. UK Rel: 24 July 2026. Cert. 12.
