Quick Synopsis: A washed-up tennis prodigy turns to pickleball to save his father’s country club and confront his past
One of these days, Apple TV is going to make a great film. Some of its TV output has been superb, but its straight-to-streaming selections have been poor. It has made some good movies, but they’ve generally been films that received cinema releases. I’m not complaining about that: I’ll always support films getting a cinema release. But it does make Apple TV a difficult streaming service for me to justify once the new season of Ted Lasso finishes.
On the plus side, none of them have been particularly awful. They’ve had some that are bland, but nothing as bad as some of Prime’s offerings. It’s into this state of mediocrity that we’re given The Dink. That’s particularly disappointing because Josh Greenbaum has made two films that I have a strong fondness for: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar and Strays. Based on those two films, he’s the correct choice to direct Spaceballs 2. Based on The Dink, I’m worried.
It reminds me of the worst parts of comedies made by what the media dubbed the “Frat Pack”, and the comedy that surrounded it: Judd Apatow, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, etc. The sort of films that would find a joke and then run it into the ground. Like they were improvising, but not bothering to edit because they wanted to make sure everybody got their shtick in. It would be improved if it tried to be less of a comedy. If it stopped trying to shoehorn jokes into scenes where they don’t belong. Especially since it derails both the realism and characterisation for the sake of getting another joke in.
The insistence on comedy also comes at the expense of emotion. The film reveals late on that Dustin didn’t break his wrist in a freak accident, but broke it on purpose because he was ashamed of losing in front of his dad. That’s powerful. It should be a turning point in the narrative, something that changes how we see him. At the very least, his dad should find out and realise the trauma he’s inflicted on his son. Nope. It changes nothing. It’s not helped by the way the film treats everyone as comedy characters rather than real people. So you don’t actually give a shit.
There’s some weird narrative logic here. The film starts with Dustin’s dad being annoyed at him for banning people from the club for playing pickleball. But then his dad holds a meeting saying they need to ban pickleball players from the club because he thinks they’re being too demanding with requests like, “Make it so our court isn’t a deathtrap.” If he’s genuinely that annoyed by the pickleball players being there, wouldn’t Dustin banning them be exactly what he wanted?
Not that it’s all negative. The John McEnroe bits are funny, particularly because of how absolutely absurd they are. It’s one of the few running jokes that doesn’t run out of steam. He’s weirdly good at comedy. Less so is Mary Steenburgen, which is strange because she’s usually REALLY good. But for whatever reason, she’s not at her best here. To be honest, it’s difficult for anybody to stand out when the characters aren’t people so much as caricatures. Nobody is given enough depth to really show what they can do. Aaron Chen seems promising, though. I get the feeling he’d make a great best-friend character.
The biggest problem is that The Dink feels like it thinks it’s funnier than it actually is. There are funny ideas here, but they’re buried underneath jokes that don’t land and characters that you don’t buy. There’s a better film hiding underneath all of this. If the father-son relationship had been explored properly, the movie could have been genuinely sweet. Instead, the comedy constantly gets in the way of what could have been a surprisingly effective emotional story.
Josh Greenbaum has already shown that he can make ridiculous comedy work. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is completely bonkers, but it understands exactly how ridiculous it is. Strays is similarly stupid, but there’s a confidence to it. The Dink feels much less controlled. It’s as though everyone involved is trying so hard to make sure we’re having fun that they’ve forgotten to trust the material to actually be funny.
It’s not terrible. There are some laughs, a few good performances buried underneath the caricatures, and John McEnroe is consistently entertaining. But for a comedy with this much talent, The Dink is surprisingly forgettable. Greenbaum has proven he can do much better. Hopefully Spaceballs 2 reminds me of that.
