It’s the tennis establishment versus pickleball enthusiasts at an uptight club in “The Dink,” a kind of spiritual descendent of “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.” The story itself is very by the books: A once promising tennis prodigy learns to get over himself and his disdain for the “lesser sport.”
In one version of the world it could have been “The Cutting Edge.” But “The Dink” chose the grounded, goofy route, with memorably eccentric characters and a few high profile cameos that add up to an enjoyable watch.
Jake Johnson plays the has been, Dusty, whose domineering father, Chuck (Ed Harris) had groomed him for tennis stardom since he was born. He called his son “The Hammer” long before he’d even told him his real name, we’re told in an amusing introduction. But as with so many sports prodigies, Dusty flamed out early (in a match against a young Andy Roddick, no less). Now he teaches tennis lessons to kids at his dad’s club and bores them with stories of his glory days. He has but one remaining champion: PJ, an earnest sycophant and kindhearted weirdo played by Australian comedian Aaron Chen.
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Dusty and his father hate pickleball with passion, so when Dusty’s doctor (a brief, funny appearance by Ben Stiller, who also produced) recommends it as rehab for a wrist injury, it’s a sentence worse than death. Naturally, he’ll eventually change his tune when he starts playing with a group of older women, including Candace (Mary Steenburgen), Gail (Cleo King) and Judy (the late Lynne Marie Stewart).
Johnson is excellent at playing the not-always-lovable loser. One of his new friends says she thinks he looks like Timothée Chalamet; He laughs that no one has ever said, or thought, that before. But she could be on to something: Dusty is kind of on the Marty Supreme spectrum.
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Steenburgen is also lovely and funny, while Harris is the perfect alpha dad; Can’t more filmmakers and screenwriters figure out how to use our septuagenarians well?
The film is packed with comic actors in smaller roles too: Patton Oswalt is the club’s resident pickleball enthusiast, Chloe Fineman is a crazy ex-girlfriend and Chris Parnell is a tennis pro. Directed by Josh Greenbaum and written by Sean Clements, it is moderately successful in toeing the line between silly and heartfelt. And, to its credit, it doesn’t go so low as to make pickleball and its players the butt of every joke. There are some, to be sure; But it’s mostly done so lovingly.
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And within all this there is one sequence that might just be the funniest bit of the year. I won’t be so cruel as to spoil what I’m talking about (or so bold to think that words might do it justice) but I will say that it involves none of the main characters and has very little to do with the story. It is just ridiculous and perfect.
Greenbaum, who was also behind “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and the upcoming “Spaceballs” sequel is carving out a nice space for himself as a reliable director of comedies, a genre that seems almost endangered on the big screen.
This is a curious time for the movies: The appetite for theatrical moviegoing is clearly there, and not just for “The Odyssey.” And yet this week has two mainstream comedies, including the Kevin Hart bachelor party movie “72 Hours,” with starry casts that are going straight to streaming. The silver lining is that people are still making straight comedies, but there’s something that’s lost when they skip the movie theater entirely. Sure, you can gather the family in the living room, but not all families have the same type of humor. It’s hard to submit to something if the people around you aren’t having a good time. In a theater, there’s at least a chance that there are some other kindred spirits around to laugh, or even groan, with. (I cannot speak to the quality of “72 Hours.”)
Some are still getting the chance, like “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” but it’s hard to believe that moviegoing will ever really be “back” when big, dumb comedies aren’t part of the regular mix.
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“The Dink,” an Apple TV release streaming Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “strong language and sexual material.” Running time: 102 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
