“The Dink” is a very funny movie about pickleball until it gets dragged down with substance

The Dink

• Directed by: Josh Greenbaum
• Starring: Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Aaron Chen, Ed Harris
• Comedy/Sport | PG-13 | 1 hr 42 min
• 2 stars

By Reed Ripley

The Dink has the same problem that plagues pickleball—it takes itself way too seriously. Pickleball’s fun and simple to play, but when the legitimacy of its “competition” and athletic bonafides take center stage, the fun dries up pretty quickly. That’s The Dink’s problem—there’s plenty of simple fun, but the film’s desire to be more than that too often sucks the life out it.

The film follows Dustin Boyd (Jake Johnson), a long since crashed-and-burned former tennis pro who turns to pickleball after his wrist gives out yet again. He teaches junior tennis under the glaring eye of his father, Chuck (Ed Harris), overseer of a posh tennis club and unabashed pickleball hater, and Boyd turns to pickleball as a roundabout way to finally earn his father’s respect. 

That’s as good of a story hook as any for a pickleball movie, and that basic premise works just fine, especially when the jokes are flying or when the pickleballers are pickleballing. The Dink is sometimes very funny, mostly when it leans into the sarcastic everyman charm of its leading man. It’s when the film tries to surround the jokes with substance—through a frankly bizarre will-they-won’t-they between Boyd and Candace, Mary Steenburgen’s character, and Boyd’s cliché dad issues—that it causes massive drag. 

It’s frustrating to watch Ben Stiller pop up a couple times (as Boyd’s slightly unhinged doctor) because Stiller’s clearly there to paint The Dink as a spiritual successor to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, one of the best sports comedies of all time. Dodgeball is (shockingly) decades old at this point, and it makes perfect sense to use it as a blueprint for movie about pickleball, another facially silly sport that most everyone secretly wants to play. 

Dodgeball wasn’t afraid to lean into its absurdity, and The Dink feels desperate to stay somewhat “grounded,” but that just makes it too boring. The Dink’s cast is stacked with enough good hangs, and it has enough funny moments, that there’s enough to recommend throwing it on during a slow summer weekend night, but there’s not much beyond that. 

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