Some movies make us scream. Others make us cry. Comedies, like Josh Greenbaum’s “The Dink,” usually try to make us laugh. But as I watched “The Dink” unfurl on Apple TV, the only noise I wanted to make was “blah.” And not just a little “blah.” This was more like a blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
If you’re reading that out loud, try to get some phlegm going at the back of your throat when you say it. Now you’re getting it. “The Dink” isn’t bad in an offensive way. It’s just boring and extremely unfunny. The film has ideas for jokes but they never evolve into their final forms. A tennis pro who plays pickleball — a trendy but less respected sport — isn’t amusing by itself. It’s an investment in future comedy that’s supposed to pay off at some point, and that future never comes.
Jake Johnson plays Dusty Boyd, a former teen tennis pro who suffered a brutal wrist injury that derailed his promising career. Now he works at a country club for his domineering, loveless father Chuck (Ed Harris). They’re both angry, bitter men in their own ways. Chuck withholds love from his failure of a son, and Dusty lashes out at anyone who doesn’t recognize his Schrödinger’s Greatness.
There’s only one thing they agree on: They hate pickleball. The whiffle sport is taking over tennis courts across the nation, and Chuck refuses to let this virus infect his club. So he arranges a duel. Will the chillax pickleball players win and make the country club more accessible? Will the snooty dicks stay in power and keep it exclusive? Will anyone else notice this is the same plot as “Caddyshack II,” except “Caddyshack II” did it better?
Dusty tries to represent Chuck in the duel but he sprains his wrist by showboating too hard. That’s when his doctor — played by Ben Stiller in a halfhearted cameo — tells him the fastest way to recover is playing pickleball. Dusty assumes it’s an easy sport and, of course, he learns that it’s not. Or at least it’s very different. His trademark power-hitting style is useless, so he has to completely rethink his approach to sports and sportsmanship — and by extension his whole life.
Structurally that’s a respectable plot. Dusty has to hit rock bottom to build himself up again. Along the way he finds the inner peace he was looking for. He even makes a normal friend, which is a big deal for Dusty, since his only friend before pickleball was a sycophantic weirdo, PJ (Aaron Fisk), who the movie thinks is funny because he’s weird and sycophantic, not because he says or does anything amusing.
Dusty’s new friend, Candace, is played by Mary Steenburgen, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Steenburgen can do no wrong. Candace is a recent divorcée who hates losing just as much as Dusty, but their different life experiences and attitudes create natural friction. “The Dink” toys with the idea that these two characters will fall in love, a subplot that’s handled in a relatively mature and healthy way. Steenburgen never lets us down. The material is beneath her but she’s the dignity “The Dink” desperately needs (and not just because it’s called “The Dink”).
It’s hard to believe how little energy “The Dink” has, especially since it hails from Greenbaum, the director of the modern comedy classic “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and the raunchy talking dog comedy “Strays.” Neither of his earlier comedies struggled to find their groove, and although “Barb and Star” and “Strays” have very different vibes, they both zip along at a peppy pace and make their audiences chortle.
“The Dink” is not committed to its sports-movie framing device, which could have kept the story propulsive, nor is it committed to subverting those expectations and sweeping its “Happy Gilmore”-esque premise into the background to focus on the characters.
Like many streaming movies, “The Dink” works less like a film and more like white noise. You’re not supposed to watch it, you’re supposed to have it on in the background while you do something else. So if you think about it, making “The Dink” this bad is arguably a public service. If you’re cleaning out the litter box and wishing you were doing something else with your life, you can always look up, remember that your option is “The Dink,” and get right back to scrubbing, content with your choices.
