Dallas Fisher

Movies like The Dink make me realize, even if only for a brief moment in time, that “they don’t make comedies like they used to” is a valid statement.

Don’t get me wrong I love Jake Johnson. He was always my favorite part of New Girl. He’s cocky, emotional, and mostly funny. What made that work in the show, was he wasn’t always on screen and here he is. He changes nothing about playing that character and it can only be described as annoying after an act or two. Jake is untrustworthy in this lead role and he is impossible to escape. Adding the lovely Mary Steenburgen to the cast was a decent attempt at diluting his presence but it is never enough.

From the first few minutes, I could easily tell where this story was going. While it’s not your typical story, because of its subject matter, it is a pretty basic paint by numbers in the comedy/drama department where pickleball just takes the place of another niche noun. Movies like this can be enjoyable for one of two reasons. It’s funny or there’s a good story. This has a third of both. The comedy is trying so hard to be dirty that it just becomes cringey and I like dirty jokes! But you can tell when the writers have never had a real conversation before. The story also takes big swings and most of them are whiffs. If they took out a handful of characters and focused less on having a joke per minute, we could have had a decent time on our hands.

I will admit two things. This was the most basic story they could have done for a pickleball movie and I still understand that it had to be done this way. The only reason I was rooting for the pickleball side of things in this conflict was because of my dad. He was a big player of the sport and I spent a day playing with him a few summers ago, so that really helped my understanding of what was going on. He would have loved this movie for the same reason I think it will be offputting to others. It straight up felt like half of this was a training video for the pickleball. Jokes shouldn’t need to be explained, let alone the entire sport.

Circling back to Mary Steenburgen, she is so lovely. I know I already said that, but it’s true. Hell, I would have taken just a movie of her backstory leading to this point. While I was a little off put by the way they showed an almost romance, I wanted her character to be at the forefront. It doesn’t resonate enough with me in the end, but I can still respect the choices it made about coming to terms with certainties of life. While we’re in the paragraph about characters, Ben Stiller felt like he was filling a contractual obligation and Ed Harris feels like he is being disrespected.

This is a dorky movie with a hot headed character that throws too many things in the kitchen.

Shout out Joey Chestnut.

Miss you dad.

4.5/10