'The Dink' review: Apple TV pickleball comedy delivers dumb fun

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).

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"The Dink": Comedy. Starring Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris. Directed by Josh Greenbaum. (PG-13. 102 minutes.) Streams on Apple TV on Thursday, July 24.

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.

Johnson plays Dusty, a former tennis pro languishing as a youth instructor at a club run by his cold, demanding dad, Chuck (Ed Harris).

On paper, Dusty is ridiculous. He brags about his glory days and 1999 Buick LeSabre and dismisses pickleball as a non-sport before taking it up as a means of rehabbing after an injury.

Whereas Ferrell would have leaned into Dusty's delusion through physical humor likely to lapse into self-indulgence, Johnson is more disciplined. He moves and behaves like a believable one-time premier athlete gone slightly to seed. Known as "The Hammer" in his glory days, he slams the ball with full force in pickleball, where a little "dink" would do.

His overenthusiasm can lead to effective sight gags, but Johnson mostly shines through his signature, laconically lethal line readings. This comparatively nuanced approach bridges the gap between the ridiculous material and co-stars Harris and Mary Steenburgen, who are never silly, even in comedies.

Piedmont High School graduate Chloe Fineman, who just left "Saturday Night Live" after seven seasons, gets a few delicious scenes as Dusty's ex. But the female lead is Steenburgen, who plays Dusty's pickleball partner, Candace.

Director Josh Greenbaum ("Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar") and screenwriter Sean Clements not only allow Steenburgen - a ballast of reality amid comedy chaos nearly two decades after "Step Brothers" (2008) - to emerge from the movie with dignity intact but provide her a showcase.

Candace swats away Dusty's insults about pickleball with zingers of her own, delivered by Steenburgen with well-honed wryness. She handles his growing awareness of her attractiveness with the practiced grace of a woman desired for decades.

Chiseled yet funny bone-free, Harris plays Chuck as newly appalled each day by his failure of a son. Chuck tried to coach Dusty to greatness, but the road ended when Dusty faced future U.S. Open champ Andy Roddick (playing himself, and rather well).

Chuck has confined pickleball to a single court. When the club's paying pickleball members balk, he agrees they can have more courts if they win a tennis duel. (Sense will not be made of much of the "The Dink"; it is best not to try.) Dusty is meant to represent the tennis side, but he injures his wrist while tripping over the net celebrating a victory.

Dusty consults a doctor played by "Dodgeball" villain Ben Stiller, an executive producer of "The Dink." In a funny exchange that stretches this movie's PG-13 rating, the doctor recommends, among other remedies, that Dusty play pickleball to help his wrist. Then he dashes off a prescription.

Although "The Dink" strongly hints the doctor just scribbled "pickleball" on his pad, it still shows Dusty going to the pharmacy, handing the scrip to a counter person and discovering that it says just that.

From such absurdist moments springs love in a comedy fan's heart. Another involves Dusty's eccentric coworker and only friend (talented Australian comic Aaron Chen) diving badly into a swimming pool.

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. Don't wait for it to be rediscovered.

Carla Meyer is a freelance writer.

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