In Apple TV’s new movie, “The Dink,” washed-up former tennis prodigy Dusty Boyd (Jake Johnson) has been reduced to coaching unruly children at his father Chuck’s (Ed Harris) 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. He not only tries pickleball, but, thanks in part to his enchanting new partner, Candace (Mary Steenburgen), he finds himself actually enjoying it. Torn between two worlds, Dusty is forced to finally face the ghosts of his past athletic failures, including his childhood nemesis, Andy Roddick (Andy Roddick). Ultimately, Dusty is drawn into a desperate battle for the future of the club, his father’s affection and his very identity.
“The Dink” is a laugh-out-loud underdog story from producer Ben Stiller (“Dodgeball”), directed by Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) from a script written by Sean Clements (“Workaholics”). The all-star cast includes Patton Oswalt, Chloe Fineman, Chris Parnell, and Aaron Chen, with Andy Roddick and Ben Stiller.
Carla Meyer for the San Francisco Chronicle:
In the consistently funny Apple TV movie “The Dink,” Jake Johnson does Will Ferrell better than Ferrell.
A broad, intentionally stupid sports comedy centered on pickleball, “The Dink” pays homage to the ‘00s sub-subgenre that included the gems “Dodgeball” and “Talladega Nights” and duds “Blades of Glory” and “Semi-Pro,” themselves all spiritual descendants of “Caddyshack” (1980).
Ferrell, star of three aforementioned movies, returned to the well recently for his Netflix series “The Hawk.” But “The Dink” is the superior product, largely because of Johnson (“New Girl,” “Minx”), the thinking person’s ne’er-do-well…
Such full commitment to risky comedic asides evokes “Barb and Star,” the sublimely dumb 2021 Kristen Wiig comedy that was released on VOD rather than in theaters because of the pandemic. A cult favorite at the time, it has picked up critical steam since.
Despite a plot that goes in and out of consciousness and a 102-minute runtime that approaches bloat, “The Dink” matches “Barb and Star” in laughs per scene, and eventually, a sense of hopefulness.
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds like another hit for Apple TV!
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