{"id":33931,"date":"2026-07-22T22:53:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T05:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=33931"},"modified":"2026-07-22T22:53:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T05:53:20","slug":"the-dink-earns-a-point-here-and-there-but-isnt-aces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=33931","title":{"rendered":"THE DINK Earns a Point Here and There, But Isn\u2019t Aces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 102 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature from Apple Original Films will be available\nto stream through Apple TV on July 24th<\/sup>, 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not sure if you might have heard the news, but there is a\nlittle period film called The Odyssey<\/em> from Christopher Nolan that is\ncurrently making the rounds at cinemas. This high-profile movie has stood as\nthe summer tentpole (and perhaps the biggest movie of the year in general) that\nstudios have been avoiding so as not to compete with. It was the only title to\nopen last week, and no major feature is opting to compete with it over the next\nseven days either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, if you are looking for counterprogramming, there is an\noption. The Dink<\/em> is a wacky, R-rated comedy with a notable cast that is\nset around the game of pickleball. I will be honest and state that it\u2019s a film\nbest not viewed within hours of seeing The Odyssey<\/em> (as I did). Lacking\nany kind of grandeur or scale, this effort\u2019s sole purpose is to provide a few\nyuks to viewers. Admittedly, it does provide a handful of chuckles thanks to\nsome of the familiar faces on display, although even going in with low expectations,\nimprovements could have been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dusty Boyd (Jake Johnson) was once a tennis prodigy whose\nfuture on the professional circuit seemed guaranteed. But after a disastrous\nexperience as a teen playing a young Andy Roddick and damaging his wrist in the\nprocess, things have never been the same. He lounges about, working as a kid\u2019s\ninstructor at the tennis club owned by his father Chuck (Ed Harris), and has no\npals other than sweet but slow-witted coworker PJ (Aaron Chen). Chuck is both\ndisappointed by his son and the growing popularity of pickleball at his club.\nIn fact, the proprietor is so incensed that he plots to challenge members who\nplay the new, popular game to a special, one-off competition that will banish\nthe game from club grounds if their representative loses. Dusty sees this as a\nchance to prove his worth to his dad, but his tennis services in the match are\nrebuked. With his wrist still acting up, Dusty\u2019s doctor (Ben Stiller) actually\nsuggests that pickleball might be therapeutic. While skeptical, Dusty gives it\na go. In the process, he meets some eccentric pickleball enthusiasts, befriends\nplayer Candace Boyd (Mary Steenburgen) and ends up playing for them in the big\nmatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even writing up the summary of this title points out the\nabsurdity of the story. For one, I imagine being a kid\u2019s tennis coach would be\na challenging but potentially rewarding job. Here, it\u2019s played strictly for\nlaughs, with Dusty and the children delivering blunt insults to one another.\nThat being said, there are a few good verbal jabs, and the film manages to use\na talented cast to eke some laughs out of the material. Johnson is a good lead,\nand although I had problems with the way the character was written (which I\u2019ll\nget into later), some of his frustrated outbursts are amusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patton Oswalt is fun as the club\u2019s pickleball\nrepresentative, and on occasion the bizarre behavior of the various club\nplayers makes an impression. As you might expect, there are plenty of curses\nfrom unexpected sources. Many miss the mark, but the odd jab lands. This\nincludes a scene involving a couple who grunt loudly while playing. And the\nfinal competition is the movie\u2019s best sequence, featuring a famous opponent,\nunexpected commentary via a celebrity cameo, and a lot of posturing and\nsmack-talk from the various characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one major issue with the picture is the writing. The\nmovie doesn\u2019t really want us to dislike Dusty. So, he\u2019s very quick to turn the\npage and try to be a better person. In fact, in between his ill-timed outbursts\nand the misreading of one personal relationship during the first half of the\nmovie, he never really behaves as horribly as she should. Instead, he\u2019s a bit\nmisunderstood, displaying occasional impulse control problems. It\u2019s no fault of\nthe cast, but Dusty should have been far more flawed than we see here. One\nimagines that the comedic and dramatic tension would be more interesting if\nDusty was unrelentingly competitive and impossible, perhaps even being unsure\nas to which group he was supporting right until the last minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, the end result isn\u2019t as cutting as one would hope for.\nIn fact, it\u2019s a little too sweet for its own good. It is clear that the main\ninspiration for this picture was Dodgeball, <\/em>but this effort doesn\u2019t have\nas many memorable characters or the same kind of physical humor that that film\nmanaged to maximize.Jake Johnson does make a good comedic lead, but the\nscript needs a sharper edge and more memorably ugly moments to make a lasting\nimpression. The Dink i<\/em>s perfectly watchable, but doesn\u2019t deliver aces\nwhen it tries to serve up big laughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 102 minutes This feature from Apple Original Films will be available to stream through Apple TV on July 24th, 2026. Not sure if you might have heard the news, but there is a little period film called The Odyssey from Christopher Nolan that is currently making the rounds at cinemas. This high-profile movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[217,614,1651,1653,1656,2537,4660,6680,10182,13368,15811,20503,20504,20505,20506,20507],"class_list":["post-33931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-217","tag-aaron-chen","tag-apple-original-films","tag-apple-tv-2","tag-apple","tag-ben-stiller","tag-comedy","tag-ed-harris","tag-jake-johnson","tag-mary-steenburgen","tag-patton-oswalt","tag-the-dink","tag-the-dink-film-review","tag-the-dink-movie-review","tag-the-dink-review","tag-the-dink-streaming"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}